LOS ANGELES, Oct. 16 -- A jury in Los Angeles Superior Court began on Monday the case that an 8-year-old boy Gabriel Fernandez was tortured and abused to death by his mother and her boyfriend in 2013.
Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty against the two defendants. Moreover, four local social workers involved in this case are also facing the charges for their negligence and mishandling evidence, some of whom can even face up to 10 years in prison if convicted.
L.A. Superior Court Judge Mary Lou Villar pointed out that some signs already showed on Gabriel during the months before his death, such as he misses school and he had injuries, which should have attracted social workers' attention that something was already wrong with Gabriel and his family.
However, the social workers failed to file the timely report and their negligence of handling the evidence resulted in the escalating abuse, according to L.A. Times.
"Our country has such related children protection department, that doesn't mean all the children are being well protected. I believe Gabriel's case is an alarm for all the social workers all over the country, no matter they are convicted or not at last," Jerald Schutte, the professor of Sociology department in California State University told Xinhua on Monday.
"It also reflects the leaders of the department do not give enough supervision, I believe such circumstances still exist in other places," he said.
Two social workers and their supervisors were fired from Los Angeles County Department of Children and Family Services (DCFS) since an internal investigation started.
The DCFS investigator Jessica Brown testified that Clement underrated the danger of Gabriel, omitted the mental health of his mother, leading to her wrongly assessment.
L.A. Times reported that during the months Gabriel was being abused, he was shot with BB gun, forced to eat his own vomit and locked in a closet.
On May 22, 2013, when the paramedics arrived at the boy's house, they found his skull was cracked, three ribs were broken and his skin was bruised and burned. He died the same day.