County child welfare officials saw ‘no red flags’ before boy, 2, died

Los Angeles County child welfare officials saw “no red flags” that might have alerted them to the impending death of 2-year-old Josue-Rey Maldonado last month.

At the time, the Signal Hill toddler had been under the supervision of the county’s Department of Children and Family Services.

The case is being investigated by Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department homicide detectives and has been determined by child welfare officials to be the result of abuse or neglect, according to child welfare records released Monday.

The news comes at a time when the county is otherwise making progress preventing such deaths. So far this year, nine children across the county have died of abuse or neglect, according to county officials. There were 31 such deaths in 2013 and 26 in 2012.

The department’s director, Philip Browning, said, “I would hope we’re on track for a much better year.”

He attributed progress to the department’s enhanced training program, a new policy manual and an emphasis on accountability for employees who make casework errors.

In the case of Josue-Rey, child welfare records show that on the day he died, Aug. 10, an unidentified caller to the county’s child abuse hotline reported that the boy arrived at the hospital with two bruises on his forehead and bruising “all over his body,” including his hairline, face, ears, abdomen, chest, arms and legs.

His mother told authorities that she had left the boy with her boyfriend the night before and returned to find him bruised and unresponsive, the records show. The boyfriend is not Josue-Rey’s father.

The mother said she had taken the boy to a doctor a week before because he was “bruising easily” and he was diagnosed with anemia. She also said the boy may have choked on a chicken bone, records show.

Josue-Rey’s death came a year after child welfare workers decided to leave him in the custody of his mother as she received court-ordered services to improve her parenting skills. They also made regular visits to monitor the child, according to an earlier child welfare report on the case.

The custody decision was made after social workers investigated a complaint that Josue-Rey had been abandoned, that his biological father had used methamphetamine while living there at the time, and that the boy had been present during a domestic-violence incident involving a gun, the report said. The inquiry by department officials found substantial evidence of neglect by both parents, according to the report, and a petition was submitted to a judge.

But it was determined that the boy’s father was the key risk to the child’s welfare, and the mother was ultimately considered a “non-offending parent” who complied with the county’s requirement that she test clean for illicit drugs, said Diane Iglesias, a senior deputy director for the department.

Iglesias said social workers visited the family monthly and “there were no red flags.” She said the department’s approach was appropriate to what social workers knew at the time, especially because the father was in jail in connection with unrelated allegations shortly after they intervened with the family.

“It appeared that the person who provided the most risk was gone,” she said.

garrett.therolf@latimes.com

Follow @gtherolf for more news about the county’s child welfare agency