Juvenile
Aug. 6, 2002
Lawmaker Lobbies for Foster-Care Reform
LOS ANGELES - A federal lawmaker, angered by problems in Los Angeles County's child protective system, announced Friday that she plans to lobby the California Legislature personally to pass a law that would make social workers criminally liable for falsifying information in court reports.
"I will provide representation in the halls of the Legislature to give children the help they don't get," Congresswoman Maxine Waters, D-Los Angeles, said. "And I will get legislators to put money in the legislation for enforcement."
Waters, who met with parents and a smattering of news reporters at the Gardena home of a mother whose child died in foster care, said her campaign to change state law would begin immediately.
"It's important to look at violations from the state level first," she said.
Waters added that her eventual goal is to change federal law.
"We hope we can open windows in the right places," she said.
In addition to seeking state-level action, the congresswoman said, she plans to put pressure on county supervisors in Los Angeles to reform the foster-care system.
"We are going to try and facilitate some new action," she said.
Neither county officials nor representatives for the county social worker's union responded to requests for comment Friday.
The state law that Waters said she wants introduced will be patterned after legislation recently passed in Florida following the disappearance of a foster child whose whereabouts remain unknown. The Florida girl had been missing for 18 months while social workers allegedly continued to falsify reports saying that they had visited her and she was doing well in the placement.
In the Gardena case, Debra Reid said the social workers assigned to her son Jonathan "set up a vendetta" against her and falsified records.
In one example, Reid claimed, social workers downplayed her child's severe asthma and juvenile diabetes. They reported, she said, that her son was a healthy child and that she was emotionally unstable.
After Jonathan died, Reid charged that local law enforcement and the district attorney refused to pursue meaningful investigations into the circumstances of the death.
"There was malicious prosecution here," Waters said.
Last week, the county Board of Supervisors approved a $1 million settlement in a lawsuit filed against the county by Reid. At that time, Reid also asked county supervisors to open a criminal investigation into the conduct of her son's social workers.
"Somehow, our system thinks money is the solution to the problem," Reid said. "A murder is a murder, no matter how you take it."
While there appeared to be some early support from the supervisors for a criminal investigation, county insiders say it is highly unlikely that any action will be taken.
A lawyer representing a pair of siblings who were also the subject of an alleged false report applauded Waters' statements. Seal Beach attorney Michael B. Stone represents Rafael Lopez, a father whose children were murdered in 1996.
In the Lopez case, a Department of Children and Family Services' social worker for Victor, 7, and Judith, 4, reported in court documents that she had made a home visit to the children and that they had been to see their dentist for treatment.
"The children had been dead for an unknown period of time, probably 9 to 21 days, when the social worker's report was written," Stone said.
A criminal court later found the children's mother, Martha Lopez, a county employee, unable to stand trial for their deaths. She is confined in a state mental institution. Meanwhile, Rafael Lopez's civil lawsuit against the county is scheduled to go to trial in December. Lopez v. County of Los Angeles, CV97-3347DT.
Waters said she has asked a nonprofit organization started by the Reid family - the Jonathan Reid Family Rights Coalition - to serve as an information-gathering arm regarding problems in the child protective system.
She described Debra Reid as "a one-woman army" who has "shown that you can fight City Hall."
Cheryl Romo
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