unPoliceYrMind

abbyjean:

On a still night last month, a Montebello fifth-grader walked to a bedroom closet, pulled out a jump rope and hanged himself — apparently to end the abuse that had tormented him for years. Just hours earlier, Los Angeles County mental health and child abuse investigators had visited the drab apartment building to examine 11-year-old Jorge Tarin. He had told a school counselor that day that he wanted to kill himself. After speaking to Jorge privately, the county workers left. A review following his June 8 suicide uncovered evidence that persistent communication breakdowns at the county Department of Children and Family Services may have contributed to the tragedy, according to county records reviewed by The Times.

When county workers decided not to hospitalize or detain the boy, they were unaware of key pieces of information, according to documentation about the case. The social worker did not have one of the portable tablet computers that the department uses to pull case records in the field.

The department paid $5.9 million for about 2,400 tablets in 2007, but purchased only 400 wireless cards to allow them to connect remotely. As a result, in a department with about 7,300 employees, the overwhelming majority of the tablets gather dust on social workers’ desks. Many field workers instead rely on personal cellphones to connect to the office.

It was not until after Jorge killed himself that the workers learned that the stepfather who answered the door had a long history of drug abuse and domestic violence. He was there when county officials visited, even though a court order barred him from living in the home.

Although county workers had visited Jorge in disheveled homes since his infancy — noting drugs, violence and neglect in the households — the complete history was not available to the officials who interviewed him that day. Without remote access to the department’s computer system, the social worker at the scene was unable to fill in some blanks that may have changed the decision to leave Jorge at the home.