Post by Milisha on Dec 11, 2008 14:07:16 GMT -5
Sometimes when children are removed from homes where they are thought to be at risk, they end up in a more dangerous place. Such was Lenny's case.
He and six siblings were removed from the home of parents Angelica and Larry Ortega in 2004 after CPS determined the kids were being abused.
The Ortegas' attorney, Dennis Moreno, said the couple did not abuse their children. The Ortegas were guilty only of being poor and having an apartment that was too small for their large family, he said.
But Lenny was placed in a religious-themed residential treatment center in Ingram, Star Ranch, for children and teens with emotional problems. Lenny, who had a mild form of retardation, lived there for 19 months. Then his parents successfully petitioned to get him back.
Before that could happen, however, Lenny and four other boys were riding their bikes on the grounds of Star Ranch with a female staff member after a heavy rain and Lenny got off his bike to try to pluck something out of the fast moving Johnson Creek. The water swept him 75 feet into a drainage culvert, where he became lodged.
That happened May 6. Lenny died on May 30 after his parents authorized a do-not-resuscitate order. He was 12.
Police ruled the death an accident, but CPS concluded negligence was a factor. (The Ortega incident prompted CPS to cancel its residential treatment contract with Star Ranch and relocate the 18 other boys who lived there. Lenny's was the second death in six months at Star Ranch.)
CPS paid for Lenny's funeral. It cost $2,700. His grave is a short walk from that of Jovonie Ochoa, whose starvation death on Christmas Day 2003 also brought CPS under scrutiny.
Lenny's grandmother Nora Ortega said it is difficult to fathom how the agency took him away, ostensibly to save him, and put him in greater jeopardy.
"I don't know why things happened this way," she said.
When she looks at pictures of Lenny as a toddler, she remembers how happy he was then.
Then she thinks of her visits with him at Star Ranch.
"Before I left he would tell me, "Grandma, take me with you."
He and six siblings were removed from the home of parents Angelica and Larry Ortega in 2004 after CPS determined the kids were being abused.
The Ortegas' attorney, Dennis Moreno, said the couple did not abuse their children. The Ortegas were guilty only of being poor and having an apartment that was too small for their large family, he said.
But Lenny was placed in a religious-themed residential treatment center in Ingram, Star Ranch, for children and teens with emotional problems. Lenny, who had a mild form of retardation, lived there for 19 months. Then his parents successfully petitioned to get him back.
Before that could happen, however, Lenny and four other boys were riding their bikes on the grounds of Star Ranch with a female staff member after a heavy rain and Lenny got off his bike to try to pluck something out of the fast moving Johnson Creek. The water swept him 75 feet into a drainage culvert, where he became lodged.
That happened May 6. Lenny died on May 30 after his parents authorized a do-not-resuscitate order. He was 12.
Police ruled the death an accident, but CPS concluded negligence was a factor. (The Ortega incident prompted CPS to cancel its residential treatment contract with Star Ranch and relocate the 18 other boys who lived there. Lenny's was the second death in six months at Star Ranch.)
CPS paid for Lenny's funeral. It cost $2,700. His grave is a short walk from that of Jovonie Ochoa, whose starvation death on Christmas Day 2003 also brought CPS under scrutiny.
Lenny's grandmother Nora Ortega said it is difficult to fathom how the agency took him away, ostensibly to save him, and put him in greater jeopardy.
"I don't know why things happened this way," she said.
When she looks at pictures of Lenny as a toddler, she remembers how happy he was then.
Then she thinks of her visits with him at Star Ranch.
"Before I left he would tell me, "Grandma, take me with you."