01x04 - Death Has Got Him by the Hand

[bunniefuu]

[high-pitched feedback buzzing]

[man]
Prosecutors have filed criminal charges

- against four LA County social workers.
- [radio station changes]

[woman]
The idea that they would falsify records,

um, is... is just, uh, you know,
beyond belief.

[radio station changes]

[man 2] There should've been a supervisor
saying, "I'm checking this out."

So, you know,
I don't care where you point the finger,

this should not have happened.

[radio station changes]

[man 3] The department of Children
and Family Services, LA County

decided to fire, not only
the social worker directly involved,

but her supervisor, a guy by the name
of Gregory Merritt.

It's worth pointing out
that Gregory Merritt

has actually been charged criminally
by the LA County District Attorney, right?

[man 4]
Yes, this is a really egregious case.

[man 3] What could explain not

permanently removing this boy
from this home before he was k*lled?

- There's just nothing to explain this.
- [man 4] No.

It seems to defy any kind of logic.

[man 3] The mother didn't want their help
and sent them away?

- [man 4] Yes.
- [man 3] That's not good enough.

The idea is that you intervene when...
when the parents are abusing a child,

you don't take their word for it that,
"We don't need your help. Go away."

[man 4] For whatever reason,
the social workers involved here

knew what was going on,
and deliberately chose

not to do something about it.

I'm facing ten years, in prison.

I've never been in a situation
where I've...

been charged with a crime.

What am I now?

Sixty-two years old and I've never...

had anything but a traffic ticket.

[distant sirens wailing]

[man] The judge is gonna have before him,

theoretically, right now,
he has in front of him

our motion to dismiss,

on the grounds that there was not enough

lawfully admitted evidence
at your preliminary hearing

to require you to stand trial.

It's called a 995.

And those are almost never granted.

- OK.
- This is an unusual case,

however, and an unusual standard.

In fact, it's unprecedented in California

for social workers to be prosecuted
for the death of a...

a child who is under the care

of a Department of Children
and Family Services.

- [Greg] Yeah.
- That... being said,

the likelihood of prevailing on 995s,

and even on a writ, is small.

[Greg] I was a supervising
children's social worker.

I did that job for about ten years.

I just had this...

uh...

desire that, you know, these are
the people I wanted to work with.

Severely emotionally disturbed children,

uh, families,

uh, families that were...

on the edge.

And found myself

working for the Department of Children
and Family Services.

And surprisingly, I liked it.

I had a unit of approximately
six social workers.

The social workers, typically,

on the average, would have about 30 cases.

Sometimes 35, 38.

Sometimes it'd go down to about 28.

[man] You're saying that you're,
ultimately, responsible for,

uh, 250 to 300...

kids.

I think the most children I had
at any one time was about 280 children.

[man] How difficult is it to keep track
of that many cases?

You can't.

That's why you have social workers
keeping track of that many cases.

And you don't know every case,

that you ought to,

only because of the fact
that there's so many.

And my workload was so immense.

When I first heard about the case,

it seemed just to be
a straightforward case.

Child had been living with a relative,

and that relative was unable
to care for that child.

And the child started living
with the mother.

As a supervising
children's social worker,

I had to oversee the social worker
who was on the case.

A Palmdale mother and her boyfriend
are behind bars tonight,

suspected of abusing and terrorizing

her eight-year-old son.

He is now listed in critical condition.

The LA County Sheriff's Department says,

"His injuries suggest
he may have been tortured."

[male newscaster] Sheriff's deputies say
they found Gabriel beaten and burned,

Wednesday night at the couple's apartment,
in Palmdale.

[Greg] I was devastated.

This is something that...

I never experienced in the 23 years
of doing social work.

I've heard...

of tragedies on other caseloads.

But I never

experienced it myself.

[male newscaster] A boy was rushed
to the hospital in critical condition,

after a call from the home saying
that he wasn't breathing.

[Greg] You're hoping the hospitalization

would just be a hospitalization.

And that he would recover.

[medical equipment beeping]

However, uh...

Gabriel...

did pass away.

And my heart was broken.

No child should die at the hands
of their parents...

that we're managing.

Social workers try to do

the best they can,

to manage their caseload.

Their goal is to...

help families, help children.

And they don't wanna see a child die.

Every one of us would say,
"I never saw it coming."

[thunder rumbling]

The red flags become more apparent

after an incident.

We ask ourselves,

"Why didn't we see it?

What was going on
in which we didn't see it?"

I know, in the Department of Children
and Family Services,

critical thinking skills become
a challenge when you're overworked,

and if there wasn't so much stress,

then you may see those red flags.

The system is overtaxed.

No social worker
should be trying to handle 30-plus cases.

[male newscaster] The t*rture death
of an eight-year-old boy in Palmdale,

has angered a lot of people over how

the Department of Children
and Family Services handled that case.

Protesters say that department
failed to protect

this eight-year-old Palmdale boy,

Gabriel Fernandez.

This was something that was a no-brainer,

any rational person would have taken
Gabriel away from those parents, period.

Taking a child away from a parent
is the last resort.

- We know you don't wanna go, OK?
- [child sobbing]

We know you don't wanna go.

It's very traumatic to remove a child.
If you've ever done it,

uh, it's the worst.

Sir, they have a court apprehension order
signed by a judge to take the child.

- [woman sobbing, shouting]
- That's all there is, OK?

[Marc] Studies have shown,
the post-traumatic stress

the children have
from being removed, is incredible.

- [woman chatting]
- [child shrieking]

Dad!

[Marc] The challenge is trying
to figure out how to preserve a family,

because kids, in the most part, do better

in their biological homes.

The system has this enormous power

to actually walk into somebody's home
and take their children away.

A lot of people
don't take too kindly to that.

And that, in and of itself,
is a challenge.

How do you manage to do that?

There are a lot of young people who say,

"I want to help make the world
a better place."

And so...

social work sounds really good.

And then they find
that they are, frequently,

called on to be detectives.

And do, uh, detective work
kind of like law enforcement people do.

Um, it's tough. It's a really tough job.

I did family preservation,

the key is...

preserving the family,

the best we can.

[man]
Researchers in favor of family unification

will argue that children are better off
if they can be kept with their families,

um, even under not ideal circumstances.

Those who are in the other camp,

though, point to the isolated
episodic cases

where that kind of philosophy
can and does result

in a child fatality.

My name is Karen Bass.

I'm a member of Congress
from Los Angeles, California.

I've been in Congress now eight years,

and before that I was
in the state legislature for six years.

I've been working on

trying to impact the child welfare system
now for about 28 years.

I got involved in this issue
in the, uh, '80s

when the whole child welfare system
exploded

because of the crack cocaine epidemic.

[sirens wailing]

When family preservation started,

it started around the same time
that the foster-care numbers

were exploding
because of the crack crisis.

It also started at a time
when there was a heightened awareness

about disproportionality.

When it comes to African American
children,

a lot of people would argue
that African American children

are removed too often,

when they don't necessarily need to be,

because of the very negative view
of African American families,

and African American people, period.

So there is a racial component to it.

There are always cases where you need
to take the child away, OK?

So let's just assume that is a given.

If it is sexual abuse,

if it is bad physical abuse,

you have to take that child away.

But if you tear up the family
preservation unit,

then what are you saying?

Then should all the kids go
to foster care now?

Or should all the kids go to relatives?

But that's the pendulum
that swings back and forth,

until the next tragedy.

[woman] The system is overwhelmingly
oriented toward parent rights,

toward family preservation.

At all costs,
let's keep kids with the parent,

and very, very little emphasis
on child rights.

They're doing everything they can to see

if we can't possibly keep
this child at home.

But what that often means is
returning kids home,

where they may be much more at risk.

The workers in this case,

appear to have been following
the basic guidance

given to child protective workers.

The system is broken,

but not... the system is broken not just
in the way people often assume

when they say that.

It's broken because it's based on...

the wrong premises.

It's based on valuing adult rights,

way, way more than child rights.

The workers were out
of that family preservation unit,

their job is to preserve families.

But we don't strengthen families
by ignoring obvious warning signs,

and just letting things continue
to escalate and escalate.

If they were coming out today and saying,

"We didn't know he had been shot
with multiple BBs.

We didn't know he had chunks
of hair missing.

We didn't know he was hit
with a belt buckle.

We didn't know he wrote a suicide note."

They knew all those things.

So if you just take what they knew,
they had enough to do more.

[man] The worker and supervisor would say,

"We didn't really think this was
in the best interest.

But the policy from the top is to leave
this child with their parents,

if at all possible."

Well, "if at all possible,"
that means if this child is safe.

[male newscaster] In a rare move,
four social workers were charged today,

in an extreme case of child abuse
where an eight-year-old boy died.

[female newscaster] Four social workers
in Los Angeles may face prison time.

This is really a landmark decision,

to send these social workers
and their supervisors to court.

Extraordinary situation of public
employees facing criminal charges...

Prosecutors say the fact
that they didn't do their job,

they did not protect him,

was as bad as them abusing
the little boy themselves.

[Greg] Oh, I've been in the headlines
since the start of this case.

I've been pretty much...
trashed in the news media.

It's a pretty intense prospect
to face ten years, however,

I don't let what might happen
in the future bother me.

I live Coram Deo.

That's "every day I live
before the face of God."

And...

that's what keeps me sane.

I've been battling pretty much
for the last four years, just to...

clear my conscience.

[man] In the years leading up
to Gabriel's death,

a number of whistle-blowers

had emerged to speak publicly,
or in private conversations

with reporters like me,

um, to talk about the problems
that they were seeing in this agency.

[man]
I've worked for DCFS since August of 1980.

Then, I retired in March of 2013.

Approximately 34 years.

During that period of time,
the greatest demand I saw, really,

was a demand for appropriate placements,

for children who were taken
into protective custody.

Once the child is taken
into protective custody,

the next challenge was,

"Where am I going to place this child?"

The emergency response
command post became

the default place because it was
the only 24-hour facility

available in the department.

So we gradually saw children coming there,

waiting for placement,

and the length of time
that the children came there

extended and extended.

[man] So kids were actually being kept
at the command post.

Children were...

- [man] Living there, essentially.
- They were living there.

[Saul] At first, we had an average
of 16 children a month.

And eventually,

we had escalated

to 350 children a month.

- [man] Staying at the command center?
- Staying at the command post.

[Saul] The situation had gotten so bad
and so chronic,

that that's when I decided
to write my managers,

and to the Board of Supervisors.

[man]
What was the reaction of DCFS managers

to your complaints?

[Saul] So, my immediate managers,

they did not like the fact
that I disclosed.

And it's my understanding

that a recommendation
was made that I be terminated.

- [man] They tried to fire you.
- Right.

[man] Instead of dealing
with what was a very serious problem.

Right.

At one point in time,
the deputy director said,

"We do not want anyone

from the emergency command post,

who experienced these problems,

to pass that information,

to the executive team,
that's her bosses above her.

[man] Don't tell anyone there's a problem.

[Saul] Don't tell anyone.

So we were threatened
with disciplinary action,

if we let them know
what the conditions were.

[man] Why is there such a culture
of secrecy at DCFS?

[Saul] Bureaucracies tend to function
to preserve themselves

and those with power.

So, if those of us
who are at a lower level,

try to indicate that there are problems,

then...

we become the problems,

and they do what they can,

- to maintain the status quo.
- [man] Preserve the institution.

Preserve the institution at all costs,

at the expense of the service
that you should be delivering

to individuals.

[man 1] All right, if you would stand,
raise your right hand please.

[Judge] Do you solemnly state
the testimony you're about to give...

before this court shall be the truth,
the whole truth and nothing

- but the truth so help you God?
- [man 2] Yes.

[man 1] Thanks. Have a seat.

- [Hatami] Good morning, Mr. Miranda.
- [Arturo] Good morning.

[Hatami] Can you tell the jury
what your occupation is?

I'm an armed guard
for the Los Angeles County,

contracted through
the Sheriff's Department.

Where were you working, if you remember,
on April the 26th, 2013?

At the, um, Los Angeles DPSS GAIN office,

in Palmdale.

DPSS,

Department of Social Services,

people went there to apply
for welfare and benefits.

That day, I was sitting down,

it was about 4:30.

The door opened,

then...

it was Pearl Fernandez,

and she had three boys and a girl.

I said, "Go ahead. Walk through."

And that's when I noticed,
she's all blasted full of tattoos.

I'm like, "Oh, my God.
This is a gangster chick, man."

All of a sudden, I noticed the boy
and all the back of his head right here,

he had a bunch of cigarette burns.

Some were small, some were wider,

some were fresh, some were healing.

Then I noticed around his eyes,

he had purple, greenish bruises.

And I'm like, "Wow,

he's all beat up."

From a scale from

one to ten?

Man, he was a 20.

At that point, Gabriel starts walking by,
and he rubs by my desk.

and he goes like this.

And he looks at me like that
with his corner of his eye.

And at that point my heart dropped like,
"Oh my God." I saw the marks.

And...

I said, "Damn, man. This is f*cked up,"
you know.

And that's when it just hit me.

"Oh, sh*t.

Child abuse, man."

Like, "Look what they're doing to me."
That's what he was saying.

I mean, his body was talking,

yelling...
he didn't really have to say anything.

It was all over his body.

Screaming for help.

[Hatami] Sitting here today,

do you know his name?

Um, Gabriel Fernandez.

Regarding getting...

the information where...
that little boy lived,

did somebody give that to you?

Or how did you get that?

I got it from Marisela Corona,

the worker that was at the window.

She wanted to report it, but she was told
not to by her supervisor.

[Hatami] Did that make you feel sad that...

nobody...

else in that office
but you was going to report

these injuries on that little boy?

Yes, actually, it pissed me off.

Marisela Corona...
she was a receptionist before.

And then she got promoted to be a worker
for domestic violence.

They got trained for it,
like a whole month.

So, I'm looking at her
and she looks at me,

"Did you see that little boy's face
and head?

Oh, my God, he had the stupidest haircut,
huh?"

I said, "No, man, he was beat up."

"Oh, my God, don't say that.
I thought he was beat up.

That's my department.
I'm in domestic violence."

I go, "Oh, there you go.

Do your job."

She storms back inside,

and I get on my desk, and...

at that point I get a phone call,

pick it up,

and it's Marisela Corona.

"My supervisor said they don't want us
to do anything,

because they don't wanna pay overtime.

They don't want us to stay."

I said, "What? Are you serious?

Suzanne Harms doesn't want you
to stay over,

even though you guys are mandated?"

"Yeah, because it's Friday
and some other...

we're gonna shut down
in about 15 minutes."

And I said, "But the kid needs help."

"I know, you really need to help him.

I'll give you their address, her name,

her phone number, anything,
but please call."

I said, "Why don't you do it
if you have this information?"

"Because they told me not to get involved.

And I don't want to lose my job."

You believed on that day
that Gabriel needed to be saved.

[Arturo] Yes.

I'm a human, dude.
That kid needed help, man.

I'm not here as... dressed as a guard
just to look for a paycheck, dude.

I'm here to make a difference, man.

If I can help someone
then I'm gonna go ahead and do it.

At that point, I said, "You know what?
It's a HIPAA law violation

for you to give me that information,

but f*ck it.

Let me do it. Give me the damn name."

I called my supervisor.

I said, "Hey, man, this kid,
he looked like he's been beat up."

"Why you wanna get involved with that?

That's not in your job duties.
It's not in the book.

If I were you, I wouldn't get involved.

Don't make us write you up."

I said, "You know what, dude? Later, man."

Hang up on him.

What else can I do?

Oh, I'm gonna call 911.

So I call in 911.

The operator's like,

"It's not an emergency.
This number is only for emergencies.

You should call the Sheriff's Department."

[woman] Palmdale Station, Deputy Soukup.
How can I help you?

[Arturo] Hello, hi. Uh, I work for the...
at the county, here at the GAIN office.

And there was a woman

that came in earlier
to pick up just a paper,

and she had four little boys with her.

And I noticed that one of the little boys,
he had, uh, all of his head was...

bruised up,

and he had lumps.

Um, and he also had, like...
he also had black eyes.

So I explained to her what's going on.

"OK, we're gonna send two deputies."
I said, "All right, cool.

But you guys will send someone, right?
'Cause it looks like he needs...

definitely medical attention."

Yeah, we'll see what we can do.

Felt like some load off my back.

But I was still disappointed
at the workers that I work with.

They didn't wanna do their job.

All because Suzanne Harms wanna look good
for her company she works for.

She wanna save them money.

All because of some overtime.

She could have saved this kid's life.

Open up Antelope Valley Times,

and I look at the story,
and there it is, man.

Picture of the parents.

They're, uh, in custody.

Gabriel Fernandez was put in a coma,

but they had disconnected him.

I'm like, "Oh my God.

He's frickin' dead."

A preliminary hearing is underway now

for two former Los Angeles County
social workers and their supervisors

charged in the death
of eight-year-old Gabriel Fernandez.

I was surprised
when it was all over the news,

that there was an open case,

DCFS case.

That was like another...

another blow, like, "Oh, my God."

They failed over here,

the people I work with,

and then

DCFS,

they also... failed him.

It's like, "What's going on, man?"

Death's got him by the hand?

Blinding everybody else?

Why doesn't anyone do something?

[man] You, basically, wrote the book
on outsourcing government contracts,

and you've been studying Maximus
for years.

Simply put what is Maximus?

Maximus is a for-profit company
that contracts to help

governments operate
services for vulnerable populations.

Including Medicaid-related services,
foster-care-related services,

Child Support.

[man]
So, just to be clear, I mean,

Maximus is a for-profit company
contracted out by the government.

That's right. You can buy stock
in Maximus,

today they're for-profit,
publicly traded.

[advert] As health insurance coverage
has expanded to millions of Americans,

Maximus is the national leader

in helping governments administer
their public programs.

[Hatcher] They're likely in every state

in the United States and in multiple
countries around the globe.

They're huge.

They, in many situations,
have almost become government,

where government has contracted out
its inherently governmental functions

to private contractors.

[advert] Maximus delivers better solutions
for better lives.

[Hatcher] People have heard the term
"The military industrial complex."

Most people, unfortunately,
I think are unaware of this huge

poverty industrial complex.

Sometimes, it's the same company.

Lockheed Martin,

you know, has also run
child support offices.

Northrop Grumman,
in addition to building tanks,

they're also making billions in contracts

for state governments
that are supposed to serve the poor.

But their focus isn't
about what's best for the poor.

Their focus is about the bottom line
of their company.

And this assessment report that Maximus
carried out on behalf of Maryland,

regarding foster children

and how the state can obtain resources
from foster children,

the assessment report refers
to foster children

as "a revenue-generating mechanism."

- [man] That's chilling to hear that.
- [Hatcher] It is.

And I think it's a...
a very unfortunate example

of where you have a contract

that is ultimately focused on profit,

rather than maximizing

the well-being of vulnerable people
who need the services.

[man] Arturo testified

that one of the people in management
at DPSS was worried about overtime

and that that was a reason to avoid

making a 911 call on Gabriel's behalf.

In light of what you know
about Maximus,

does this surprise you?

Well...

no.

'Cause there have been claims
against Maximus

for not paying overtime,

in various States.

Cost-cutting becomes,

unfortunately, I think, typically,
a focus of the private companies.

[man] What does the compensation package
look like for the head of Maximus?

Well, I believe if you look
on their website,

it's about three million or more
for the current CEO.

[man] We found the actual contract
between LA county and Maximus.

What do you see here?
What jumps out of you?

Well, looking through it,
the first thing that jumps out is

the contract manager's services
can be performed

more economically by an independent
contractor than by county employees,

which is a pretty striking statement.

We're contracting this process out

because it's gonna be cheaper,

and we can do it as a way to cut costs

by using a for-profit company
and their employees,

rather than County employees.

[man]
It says here that child abuse reports

shall be made by telephone
within 24 hours

to the Department of Children
and Family Services hotline.

Everything we can determine,
that just wasn't done here.

Is that a breach of this contract?

Well, it does seem like
there's clear language here.

"The contract staff shall report
all known or suspected instances

of child abuse to an appropriate
child protective agency,

as mandated by these code sections."

So, this is part of the contract,

and if the contractor
was working under this,

and didn't make such reports
then that would be

um, in conflict
with the contract language.

[Therolf] In these documents here,

we see that Maximus's contract
with Los Angeles County

has been worth about $110 million
over the past decade.

And there's a provision here
that requires

competitive bidding every three years,

but in the votes here,

we're seeing that it's only gone out
to competitive bidding

twice in the past 14 years.

[Lei]
Year after year, they kind of consistently

did not meet a lot of the requirements
required of their contract.

Like the work participation rates,
the way they handle the case files.

But what we saw was their contract
kept getting extended each time.

[Therolf] It turns out that there were
hundreds of thousands of dollars

being paid to the lobbying firm belonging

to the son of the deciding vote
on the Board of Supervisors.

Maximus had hired a lobbying firm
called Englander Knabe & Allen.

Knabe, in that instance, is Matt Knabe,

who is the sonof supervisor Don Knabe

who voted when he was
on the Board of Supervisors...

one, two, three, four times...
in Maximus's favor

to hold onto this contract.

In two of those instances,
he was actually the deciding vote.

[Lei]
Over a five-year period from 2013 to 2018,

Maximus had spent about $775,000,

the third-highest lobbying in LA County.

[man] We asked Maximus for their response
to what Arturo said on the stand.

They are saying

that Marisela Corona actually did call
the Sheriff's office that night.

Yeah, she signed this new statement,
signed this year,

saying that she did have phone contact
with the Sheriff's department

and provided certain information
about the family.

[man] But her original affidavit
didn't talk about any contact.

[Therolf] Right. Her original
signed statement six years ago

made no mention whatsoever of any contact.

[man] And what evidence is there that
she contacted the Sheriff's department?

There's no evidence. Uh, we've thoroughly
reviewed the case file, and...

our sources have reviewed the recordings
in and out of the Sheriff's department.

There's no indication
that she made any contact.

- [man] And when did she file this?
- [Therolf] Uh, this month...

[man] So just after we started asking them
about this.

[Therolf] It was clearly done in response
to our inquiries to the company.

[man] Maximus also tried to cast down
on Arturo's sworn testimony.

They are saying that he changed his story
over time. Did he?

[Therolf]
Yeah, there are some inconsistencies.

At certain instances, he says
that Gabriel had one black eye.

In another instance, he said he had two.

However, when you look
at the core narrative that he is telling,

he is extremely consistent.

You know, the elements
where he talks about

the fact that he was the only person
to make a report that day,

the fact that he had interactions
with employees in the GAIN office

and they did not make a report,
not only are those consistent,

but all the material facts
support his account.

[man] If you believe his testimony,

Arturo Martinez
was going against his bosses

when he called 911.

What does it say that in order to do
what is needed to be done,

in order to save a boy's life,

an employee has to feel like
they're risking their job?

Yeah, I think you have to hope that case,
you know, for humanity

to take more importance over the mission.

If you have an employee for a company
who's really loyal to that company,

you're forcing a situation
where the individual has to...

break that loyalty of mission
in order to do what's right.

At least there might have been a chance,

in order to step in to protect a child
who's at risk.

The individuals working for an agency

are also supposed to report concerns.

If that doesn't happen,
that can mean a life.

Uh, it can mean a child's life.

[Arturo] Beating a kid up?

Every day?

Feeding him... cat sh*t.

Being tied up inside a box

with a bandana over his face

and tape on his mouth?

How can you even sleep?

Every other day he...

crosses my mind,

you know, how he's...

he's gone.

I mean, I even found out
that instead of burying him,

he got cremated.

I mean,

turned into nothing.

And, it's just unbelievable.

He's nothing but ashes now.

[male DJ] It's not just the Department
of Children and Family Services

that has been the target
of this investigation,

it's also the Sheriff's Department.

A bunch of sheriff's deputies
were disciplined also,

because there were times
they were sent to the boy's home,

in the middle of the night sometimes,

because the call kept getting pushed off
and pushed off as a lowest-priority call.

Eventually, deputies would show up
at the house

after teachers
or somebody else had reported abuse,

the boy being beaten,
with bruises or burns,

they'd knock on the door
at 2:00 in the morning or midnight,

and they just took the mom's word for it.

They didn't demand to see the boy.

[Hatami]
For the ten years or so I've been a DA,

never thought that anybody was

hiding anything from me,

never thought that any police officer,

Sheriff's Department,
LAPD or anybody wasn't giving me anything.

It was May of 2016,

the Defense Attorney Michael Sklar
brought up in open court

that the Sheriff's Department
did an investigation,

and they wrote a report.

I basically said,

"I don't know anything
about any investigation."

There isn't any reports.

So I thought at first Sklar
was asking for bad stuff about deputies,

and the reason I say this is...

so we had already known

about eight deputies involved
during an eight-month span.

Deputies went out to Gabriel's apartment
and didn't do anything.

Those deputies didn't write reports,

but they documented it in what's called
their mobile data computer.

"I'm at location so and so,"

and what time you got there and whatnot.

However, that's all we had,
so we didn't have reports.

We didn't have investigations.

So now he was saying
there's some sort of Internal Affair file.

And I kept saying, "I don't know
what you're talking about."

And then finally Judge Lomeli said,
"If there is an IA investigation,

you need to go get it and turn it over."

I was like, "OK. You know, that's fine."
If the judge orders me to do it,

OK, I'm gonna go do that.

So I started, you know, asking around.

And...

everywhere, like, I turned,

either somebody, they didn't know,
or they would say they'd get back to me.

And they never would get back to me.

And they were talking to me in a way
that got me concerned.

This is, you know, People Versus
Isauro Aguirre and Pearl Fernandez.

Now, this is the Gabriel case.

Do you have this? Like, I need this.

It was just total runaround.

So I reached out to a friend,
who's a deputy,

who then got me in contact
with another deputy,

and...

they immediately told me
that there was, uh,

an Internal Affairs file.

It was hundreds of pages,

and that they interviewed

numerous people.

What happened was,

this unit, Internal Affairs,

decided to do an investigation
and not tell me or anybody else about it,

for three years.

'Cause you're talking about 2013,
and we find out about it in 2016.

So the defense attorney knew about it,

and the defendant knew about it,
but I didn't know about it.

As soon as I found that out,

I launched, you know, numerous e-mails

to all sorts of people
within the Sheriff's Department,

ordering them to turn over this file.

And the response was, yeah, nothing.

Then, I would send more e-mails saying
the judge has ordered this,

sending the transcripts
of the judge ordering it. Nothing.

Then saying, "No, this is discovery.

You have to turn it over.
You're in violation of Brady.

You're committing a violation
of the Constitution.

You need to turn it over." Nothing.

I was... completely shocked

that this information
wasn't being turned over to me.

And scared.

Scared about the fact
that I thought we were... this...

was gonna cause a major problem,
and we weren't doing the right thing.

It could have affected

the prosecution of...

Isauro Aguirre and Pearl Fernandez
and getting justice for Gabriel.

So my last resort was
to file a Pitchess motion.

And... that's unusual.

Pitchess is, if a deputy
does something bad,

a complaint's filed against him or her.

The defense attorneys are trying
to impeach the police officers,

and they're basically saying,
"Hey, you're bad."

Most prosecutors have never filed
a Pitchess Motion. Just doesn't happen.

Like, because if we ask for something,
they just give it to us.

I shouldn't have to file a motion

to get something
from the police department.

Um... and I filed a Pitchess motion...

listing all the deputies
I thought that went to Gabriel's house,

listing that file,

you know, demanding them to turn it over.

I also subpoenaed every deputy
that went out to Gabriel's apartment.

I wanted to make sure
that nobody's gonna start lying to me.

Someone still needed to explain to me

how the Sheriff's Department
gets to investigate

and talk to numerous witnesses,
including witnesses we didn't talk to,

collect evidence,
and not share it with anybody,

for three years.

In the Sheriff's Department,
rumors spread fast.

Some of the deputies

thought that I was making them look bad.

More information was coming out
about the fact

that numerous deputies that went
to Gabriel's apartment,

and there was no reports done on that.

And so there were some friends of mine
who told me

to be careful and watch my back
'cause some deputies are really upset.

[woman] A lot of deputies thought

that he wanted to have them prosecuted,

and they were starting a lot of rumors
and spreading rumors about him,

and then also about me.

I did patrol at Santa Clarita,

and then, when I promoted to a detective,
I went to Palmdale,

and I was there
for just under two and a half years.

And then I came back to Santa Clarita
in June of 2016.

She's a detective,
but she also works patrol.

She was told, you know,
if something happens

or somebody doesn't help you,
you need to let management know.

I clearly took it as a threat to my wife

and a threat to my family,

that there's... potentially some people
are gonna be upset about this situation,

to the point where I was concerned.

It could have meant that if I was
in a situation where I needed help,

that maybe someone wouldn't come.

You really have to trust

you partners.

And so I didn't like
that it made me question...

question that trust.

[Hatami] People were mad.

Uh... and you never know what people
are gonna do when they're armed and mad,

and they feel like maybe
they can lose their job

because they did something wrong,

or they can get prosecuted,

right, for doing something wrong.

[man] This is borne out of a culture of

the most important thing to do is to be
loyal to your fellow officers, right?

And there's very little accountability.

Some individuals in the department,
their past history doesn't look good,

especially when they're threatening
FBI agents.

Come on guys. Come on.

[Robert] When I worked at the LA Times,

I covered the LA County Sheriff's
Department and Lee Baca.

And during those years, deputies
were able to act with relative impunity.

There was scandal after scandal,

and it was not an agency that was

very willing to accept blame
and to acknowledge faults.

The FBI was beginning
to investigate inmate abuse in the jails,

and had cultivated an inmate informant
in the jails who was secretly

reporting on allegations of abuse,

and other misconduct being done
by deputies.

Sheriff Baca did not take kindly
to this effort

to scrutinize his department by the FBI.

We do not tolerate misconduct
by any deputies.

[Robert[ He was defiant. He declared,
you know, "We police ourselves,"

and accused FBI of committing a crime
by smuggling the phone into the jails.

So it was full-on w*r initially

between the Sheriff's Department
and the FBI.

They actually sent two of their deputies,
physically,

to the home
of the lead FBI agent on the case

to threaten her with arrest.

Any way you cut it, that's...

very intimidating.

It wasn't at her office,

you know, they... they showed up
at her home.

[Hatami] So you're talking
about the backdrop where we just had

Baca accused of going to an FBI agent

and threatening her,

because of some exposing
of some information.

And to threaten my family,

to disrupt my wife's job,

to threaten the case,

and then to file a complaint against me.

And all because
I was trying to do the right thing

and turn over discovery

that was in the possession
of the Sheriff's Department,

that they would say
we should have known about.

I tried to get them to explain to me

why you're conducting
this parallel investigation,

who started this investigation,

who said, "I need you to go out there,

and investigate all the deputies
who went to Gabriel's house?"

It's wild that I have to file a motion

to force my own police department
to turn over information.

It was a very heated court proceeding.

Very, very heated.

At the end of that court proceeding,
uh,

Judge Lomeli ordered them to turn over,

uh, the file.

Everybody got the file, and...

there was a lot of information
in that file that helped our case,

that, for some reason, they felt they...
they weren't obligated to turn over.

[male newscaster] New developments
in the investigation into the death

of eight-year-old Gabriel Fernandez,

on the eve of the one-year anniversary
of the boy's death,

CBS2 has learned some Sheriff's deputies
have been disciplined

in connection with this case.

[female newscaster] Records show deputies

were called out to the Fernandez home
five times

in the months preceding his death.

[Therolf] One deputy who was called
to Gabriel's house

was a deputy named Federico Gonzalez.

After the suicide notes were reported
to 911 in the child abuse hotline,

he showed up at around 2:00 a.m.,

spoke to Isauro,

but did not see Gabriel
or talk to Gabriel.

According to the notes from a counselor,

he made the decision

that Gabriel did not sound like a child
who was seriously contemplating suicide.

In fact, he seemed like a spoiled child.

And, according to Isauro, he offered
to come back the following morning

and scare Gabriel from making
these claims again.

[Elizabeth]
The sheriffs knew they were out there,

and Pearl had told them

that some bigger kids that beat him up,

and that's why he had marks on him.

They put him in back of the car
and told him

that if he kept lying

about things, that he would be the one
to go to jail.

That's what neighbors

there in the apartment building

told us when we had his vigil there.

Um...

I couldn't believe it.

[man] If you have multiple roll-outs

to a home

with a child that old,

that can articulate what's going on,

if they're properly
interviewed away from the perpetrators,

most children

will at least tell you something

that should raise the hairs on the back
of your neck.

Or give you enough information

that you pull them out of the home,
immediately.

[man 1] Can you tell the jury what you do
for a living, sir?

[man 2] I'm an LA County Sheriff's deputy.

My assignment was, I worked
for Palmdale Station, and I was a...

school resource officer.

[Chadburn] This deputy,
with the Sheriff's Department,

goes out to some address of record,

and nobody's there, nobody's home.

I left and went to some other schools.

[man 1]
And did you return to that address?

Yes, I did.

- [man 1] On the same day?
- Yes.

And what happened when you returned
to the address?

I knocked at the door again,
and there was no answer.

[man 1] What did you do next?

Uh, that was the end of my day,
so I went home.

He goes back the next day,

and finally calls the phone number
of the family,

and Pearl answers.

[Lee] Yeah, I don't remember
the entire conversation.

It's about four and a half years ago,

but I do remember her stating
that she moved a child to Texas.

- [man 1] So you believed that, uh...
- I did. Yes, I did.

[man 1]
That Gabriel had been moved to Texas?

I believed the mother, yes.

[Chadburn] The deputy doesn't do
any more investigation.

It was just a week before his death.

[Philip] DCFS workers got fired,

and the DA is prosecuting,

while similar visits were made
by law-enforcement entities

and very little, if anything,
happened to them.

[female newscaster] The Sheriff's
Department says it can't discuss details,

citing personnel issues,
but we're told no one will be fired,

and described the deputy's missteps
as minor.

[Hatami] Did it embarrass some people
in the Sheriff's Department

because many of these deputies
went to Gabriel's apartment

and didn't write reports?

Yeah, but you know what?
They embarrassed themselves.

If somebody's embarrassed
or not embarrassed,

well, a little boy was tortured
and m*rder*d,

so I think people can deal
with a little bit of embarrassment.

[call rings]

[woman] Hello?

[woman 2] Hello, may I speak
with Patricia Clement, please?

[Patricia] Yes, this is Patricia.

[Mary] Hi, this is Mary Cenovich.

I'm an investigator

from the Los Angeles County District
Attorney's Office.

I would like to, um, speak with you

regarding your prior employment
by LA County.

[Patricia] Why?