THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Monday, October 31, 1994 TAG: 9410310046
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY MATTHEW BOWERS, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: VIRGINIA BEACH LENGTH: Long : 157 lines
Christopher N. Herrera was 5 months old, but weighed little more than a newborn at 9 pounds 6 ounces. His muscles were wasting away, his ribs poked through his pale skin and his buttocks were little more than flat, shriveled folds of flesh.
Police and Social Services investigated, removed the boy from his home and charged his parents with felony child neglect, punishable by up to five years in prison.
Then on Oct. 2, five months after Christopher had been taken away, Social Services gave the boy back to his parents.
Outraged prosecutors preparing to send the parents to jail at their January trial erupted in dismay. The Social Services director countered that going home was in the boy's best interests. And once again the debate was joined over the best way to protect society's youngest, most helpless victims.
It's not the first clash over the issue involving Virginia Beach Social Services. Earlier this year, a judge rebuked the agency for its delayed handling of a child-abuse complaint, and police and prosecutors investigated its placement of a foster child in the home of a convicted molester.
Christopher's condition came to light May 6, according to court records and interviews. His mother, Karen C. Herrera, 20, was shopping at Bare Necessities, a discount lingerie store within walking distance of their home in The Palms Apartments off Virginia Beach Boulevard. A store clerk and an assistant city attorney noticed the obviously malnourished infant, and authorities were called.
When a police detective and a social worker showed up later the same day, Karen Herrera and her husband, Martin Herrera Jr., 21, expressed surprise.
They said they fed the infant formula and often oatmeal or rice cereal every three or four hours, on demand, mixing the formula according to the directions on the container. They thought Christopher had gained a lot of weight in the four months since he was operated on in January to remove a stomach obstruction.
Impossible, doctors told police. Christopher should have doubled in weight since the operation, not gained just 1 1/2 pounds.
His sister, 2 1/2 at the time, wasn't malnourished. And while hospitalized for 11 days at Portsmouth Naval Medical Center, Christopher ``gained appropriate weight'' with regular feeding, leading doctors to conclude that he wasn't being fed properly at home.
Karen Herrera told investigators she was almost solely responsible for Christopher's care because of her the duties of her husband, a Navy quartermaster. She never took her son back to the doctor for his free post-operation or regular checkups or shots because she couldn't find baby-sitters for her daughter or ``something would come up.'' Transferred in summer 1993 from California to the Little Creek Naval Amphibious Base, the Herreras were self-described ``isolationists'' with no friends.
While in California, Martin Herrera ran into trouble with authorities concerning one of his children. He was arrested in April 1992 in northern California on suspicion of abusing their daughter. The girl was placed for a while in foster care, but the Vallejo, Calif., district attorney didn't prosecute the case, according to officials and court documents. The details behind the arrest could not be obtained.
When Christopher was released from the hospital in mid-May, he also was placed in a foster home. Police and later a grand jury brought felony neglect charges against his parents.
In September, the Herreras convinced Juvenile and Domestic Relations District Judge Woodrow Lewis to return to them legal and physical custody of Christopher. Social Services objected, and when it lost, the agency appealed.
But at the Sept. 30 hearing of the appeal in Circuit Court, Social Services reversed itself and recommended that the boy be returned to his parents after all. The surprised court-appointed guardian, lawyer Paul H. Ray, and Christopher's foster father heard of the change of heart that morning. They vigorously opposed the new recommendation.
Circuit Judge Thomas S. Shadrick postponed Judge Lewis' order, but left any decisions about Christopher up to Social Services.
Two days later, on Oct. 2, the boy was returned to his happy parents.
Assistant Commonwealth's Attorney Janee D. Joslin doesn't share their joy, nor understand Social Services' decision.
``Yes, I think the child is in great danger,'' said Joslin, who will try the Herreras in January. ``He was doing great in foster care. Why they pulled him out is beyond me.''
Her boss, Commonwealth's Attorney Robert J. Humphreys, said he's angry that another city agency ``puts the child back in a dangerous environment'' - with the parents - even as his office is trying to put the same parents in prison.
``My understanding is their policy is they want to keep families together at all costs,'' Humphreys said. ``I think that's a very short-sighted policy. I think it can be carried to a bureaucratic extreme.''
Social Services Director Daniel M. Stone said his agency didn't agree with the earlier decision of Lewis to release the boy to his parents because it wanted more time to work with the Herreras.
Stone said he couldn't discuss specifically what services were provided because of confidentiality rules, but by the second hearing before Shadrick, his staff was pleased with the parents' progress, and a Court Aappointed Sspecial Advocate worker and a therapist concurred with sending Christopher home. Among the conditions of the Herreras' release from jail on bond was that they complete parenting or child-development classes and psychotherapy.
``This is not a decision that my agency has made within a vacuum,'' Stone said. ``It's a crucial time to the development of a child.''
Federal and state policies call for keeping troubled families together where possible, particularly those with younger children, to establish a sense of permanence for the children and retain their bonds with their parents. If removed, children are returned home only with adequate safeguards, said Suzanne Fountain, a state Child Protective Services program specialist in Richmond.
Each situation is unique, she said. ``The criteria would be: What has changed in the home to protect that child?''
That's not known in the Herreras' case. Such changes could include classes, therapy, in-home help and scheduled and surprise visits by authorities, said Nianza E. Wallace, an assistant city attorney who represents Social Services. He also wouldn't provide specifics in the Herreras' case, and the court file concerning Christopher's custody was sealed by Shadrick.
Betty Wade Coyle, executive director of the Hampton Roads Committee for Prevention of Child Abuse, called for more funding for professional foster care and new laws to get kids out of suspect homes pending trials, to avoid further problems. Right now, she said, ``it's cheaper to send them back home.''
She and Stone agreed that Social Services and the commonwealth's attorney's office have different mandates. ``We are independent agencies and we reach our decisions in different ways,'' Stone said. ``The public doesn't know the facts - my agency knows the facts.''
Authorities have questioned whether that's enough.
In February, a Juvenile and Domestic Relations District judge threatened contempt and publicly chastised Virginia Beach Social Services for ignoring his court order to investigate a child-abuse allegation. Months after his order, police and social workers discovered that the 4-year-old girl in question was being punished in a closet cell-like setup called ``The Box.''
In the spring, police and the commonwealth's attorney's office investigated the agency's decision to knowingly return a foster boy to the home of a convicted child-molester. No charges resulted against the agency.
Prosecutor Joslin said she would try to bring out the earlier abuse complaint against Martin Herrera at his trial.
Herrera said ``I couldn't talk if I wanted to'' about his California arrest. He and his wife referred questions to their attorneys, who didn't return phone calls.
But the couple said they didn't understand why prosecutors were in an ``uproar'' that they had Christopher back, and laughed at the thought that their home might be considered ``dangerous'' for the boy.
``We love our son very much, and we're glad he's home,'' Karen Herrera said.
Since the boy's return, caseworkers and others - including the court-appointed guardian - have visited regularly.
A woman who identified herself as a baby-sitter from Family Services of Tidewater was at the Herreras' apartment recently, putting the children down for naps. She said she was helping out to ``relieve stress'' in the family.
``I can say he's doing fine,'' she said of Christopher. ``He's a big boy.''
Christopher and his sister soon will have another sibling. The Herreras are expecting their third child in December, a month before their trial.
KEYWORDS: CHILD ABUSE CHILD ENDANGERMENT VIRGINIA BEACH SOCIAL
SERVICES DEPARTMENT FOSTER HOME by CNB