City Attorney to Review Cases of Child Abuse

Trying to stop child abuse before it becomes deadly, Los Angeles City Atty. Rocky Delgadillo announced Thursday that he is forming a child abuse prosecution unit to go after misdemeanor crimes that previously had not been investigated.

Until now, the county Department of Children and Family Services has not passed on reports of child abuse and neglect to the city attorney’s office, where the cases can be prosecuted as misdemeanors. This week, the county Board of Supervisors unanimously voted to require the department to give the city attorney reports of all cases of child abuse and neglect in the city of Los Angeles.

Delgadillo, who worked with county Supervisor Mike Antonovich to require the department to send the reports, said he is seeking $2 million in state funding for the new unit to review each case and determine whether charges should be filed. He is also seeking funding from the city and private firms.

“For far too long, misdemeanor prosecutors have not been fully included in our county’s efforts to protect children,” Delgadillo said during a morning news conference at a City Hall child-care center. “Misdemeanors are warning signals, and we cannot afford to ignore them.”

Public agencies are required by state law to share information about child abuse and neglect. Officials with the county Department of Children and Family Services acknowledged that they had not been forwarding information to the city attorney’s office because the reports already were going to the Los Angeles Police Department and the district attorney’s office.

“It was our understanding that one of those two agencies would send those reports to the city attorney,” said Eric Marts, acting chief of the Bureau of Child Protection. “Since they’re saying they’ve got a unit now and they want to be involved, we welcome it, and we’ll start sending reports to them.”

Antonovich called the new partnership between the county and the city attorney’s office a “historic collaborative effort.”

“Many times, bureaucracy is too tired to do their job,” he said at the news conference. “And as a result, we hear about the children who fall through the cracks and end up in our cemeteries.”

Child advocates said that by going after less severe abuse and neglect, officials will help head off more brutal acts against children.

Gail Helms said her 2 1/2-year-old grandson Lance Helms could have been saved had prosecutors charged his heroin-addicted father with abuse before he had a chance to beat the child to death in 1995.

In the months he was living with his father, David Helms, Lance was repeatedly abused, she said. None of the incidents were reported to law enforcement or prosecutors, even though he was removed from his father’s home at one point.

“If David had been prosecuted and found guilty of child abuse, I firmly believe this would have protected Lance from being returned by the court to his abuser 10 weeks before he was killed by him,” Gail Helms told reporters.

Delgadillo said his office expects to begin reviewing about 100 child abuse and neglect cases a day beginning next week.

He is hoping to fund the new unit with money from Proposition 10, the tobacco tax initiative, in addition to other public money and private donations. On Thursday, Verizon Wireless donated $40,000 to the city attorney’s office to purchase computers, software and digital cameras for the effort.