State Investigation Requested for Baby Roman's Death

11/21/2006 (KFSN) -- Fresno County Board Supervisor, Henry Perea is now asking the state to investigate Baby Roman's death. He says it was the county's responsibility to protect that child, but the County failed. Child Protective Services removed three month old Baby Roman after doctors told police someone intentionally broke the baby's arm.

Fresno Police now say CPS returned the baby to his father, but never told investigators. Detectives say it was crucial information because the father, Robert Quiroz, was under investigation for child abuse.

Perea says, "As a county, we have the responsibility to protect children from harm, and in this case we have a serious problem with whether that did occur. Did our safety net work? It doesn't appear that it did."

CPS Director, Cathi Huerta says when the caseworker returned the baby to his father three days later, the caseworker wasn't sure if his father was responsible for the injury or someone else in his sister in-law's house. She further added that state law prevents her from talking about details of the case.

Regardless, CPS handed the baby back to what some say was an unsafe environment.

The following conversation is an excerpt from a conversation between Action News Reporter Itica Milanes and the CPS Director.
Itica:"This child is dead, and where were the safeguards for that baby? CPS is being protected, the caseworker is being protected. What about the baby?"
Huerta:"It's not a protection of CPS or the caseworker. It's the laws in which we work with, the confidentiality laws that were actually put in place to protect the family."

The 20 year old father shared his heartache on a myspace page. He wrote, "On August 21, my whole world ended. My beautiful wife Candice died. Four hours after she gave birth to my son she had an aneurism." He made his last entry November 19th, the day after Baby Roman had died. He said "Noooo way you can understand me."

Supervisor Perea says the system has got to change. "When our system fails our children suffer. And in the worst of situations like this, children die. And that's just unacceptable."

The baby died over the weekend from massive blunt force trauma. Robert Quiroz is at the Fresno County Jail accused of murdering his own son.

CPS says it's doing an internal investigation, but Supervisor Perea says change needs to happen at CPS from the top down.

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