CPS safety plan put child in danger, police say

Last month, Pierce County sheriff's deputies and Child Protective Services pulled a 12-year-old boy from his home, suspecting he was being abused by his step-grandmother.

Less than a month later, deputies were back at the Puyallup home again, but not because of additional allegations of abuse. This time, they were prompted by the CPS "safety plan," which called for the boy to live in a travel trailer in his grandparents' backyard. When detectives found out the boy had been living there for about two weeks, they were so floored that they decided to intervene, according to sheriff's spokesman Ed Troyer.

And then sheriff's detectives discovered the problems ran much deeper. Troyer said detectives now believe the boy was tortured for years, including being beaten with a bamboo stick and scalded. Teachers and others who suspected abuse had made nine prior reports to CPS, but the agency declined to investigate all but one complaint, according to a CPS spokeswoman. They found that one complaint inconclusive.

CPS regional administrator Nancy Sutton said the agency was stymied because the boy wouldn't confirm he was being abused. Nonetheless, the agency plans to scrutinize the case to see where it might have done things differently.

That doesn't satisfy Troyer. Although law-enforcement officers typically are reluctant to publicly criticize another agency, Troyer was unusually blunt in his criticism of CPS and its handling of the case. "What has me riled up about the whole thing is it shouldn't have got this far," he said.

Last week, the boy's step-grandmother, Loni Venegas, was charged with seven counts of assault of a child. The boy's grandfather, Remil Venegas, was also charged with assault of a child.

Reached at their home Monday, Loni Venegas declined comment and hung up.

Meanwhile, Troyer said the case raises a number of larger issues — such as CPS procedures that he said give police too little information too late. He also said that a public that diligently calls CPS to report suspected child abuse might be better off calling police instead.

"I just don't understand why people have been brainwashed into calling CPS," Troyer said. "It's a crime; it should be investigated by police."

In 2001, the boy's mother and her boyfriend — a man he called "papa" — were killed in a car accident. Because his biological father had only minimal contact with the boy over the years, several relatives engaged in a lengthy battle over the boy's custody. A court commissioner placed him with Remil Venegas, his maternal grandfather, and Remil's wife, Loni.

By 2004, CPS began receiving complaints of suspected abuse, according to charging documents filed last week by the Pierce County Prosecutor's Office. In May 2004, someone at Collins Elementary School called after the boy told classmates that his grandmother "threw him down and hurts him a lot." He confirmed the allegations to a counselor but said he didn't want to talk about it or he'd get in trouble.

That September, a teacher at Collins reported the boy had a bruised eye, nose and cheek. He said he slipped playing soccer at school one day — but the teacher knew there hadn't been school that day.

That same year, administrators were concerned that the boy had an inordinate number of absences, which can be an indicator of child abuse. When school officials called the boy's home, the Venegases withdrew him from school, charging documents state. The school called CPS about that, too.

"The counselor reported fearing there was no safety net for the child," court documents state.

Between March 2004 and December 2005, CPS recorded eight complaints, but declined to investigate, Sutton said. The family was referred to unspecified services in response to one complaint, the agency said. The agency did not specify which complaint.

In March 2007, the boy was enrolled in Ford Middle School when another complaint came in alleging the boy had cuts and bruises on his face and was missing a tooth. The boy said he got hurt playing, but school officials were concerned enough that they called his prior school to see if people there had noticed anything suspicious.

Middle-school personnel reported their suspicions to CPS, but the boy didn't disclose abuse to investigators. He later told Pierce County detectives that the CPS caseworker interviewed him in front of his grandparents, according to court documents. Sutton denied that this occurred.

Pierce County sheriff's detectives also questioned the boy in response to the school's complaint but he didn't disclose abuse to them, either. That case — the only one investigated by CPS until the most recent one — was closed.

Troyer said things might have been different if detectives had known about the eight prior complaints.

Under CPS policy, intake workers decide whether to forward complaints to law enforcement by filling out what's known as a "blue sheet." But the blue sheets don't always provide important information, Troyer said — like details about prior complaints.

"We get blue sheets with two or three sentences on them," Troyer said. "We just get piles and piles of blue sheets and no way of tracking them."

But Sutton said detectives were informed about the eight prior referrals. And they can always ask for further information.

Troyer said there's another issue at play with the blue sheets.

They're sent through the Postal Service instead of via e-mail, which means they can't be tracked electronically by law enforcement. And sometimes law enforcement doesn't receive them for weeks, according to Troyer. By that time, he said, "black eyes are gone, cuts are healed."

Last month, a neighbor took the boy to the sheriff's department after he showed up at the doorstep with a swollen face. The boy told officers he was afraid to go home because Loni Venegas was abusing him, according to charging papers. He was removed from the home by CPS.

Within two weeks, CPS officials, along with family members and others, came up with the plan to have him live in the trailer. His grandfather, who at that point was not accused of abuse, was supposed to stay there with him. While Troyer describes the trailer as an "oversized doghouse" with no running water, Sutton described it as being equipped with air conditioning and electricity.

In retrospect, the agency "does have concerns about that decision," according to CPS spokeswoman Kathy Spears. They plan to take another look at how that came about.

When detectives learned he was in a trailer, they swooped in once again and pulled him out. At that point, they said, the boy revealed more disturbing details during an in-depth interview.

According to court documents, the boy said:

• Remil Venegas repeatedly punched him in the stomach

• Loni Venegas scraped a fork up and down his legs and then poured vinegar into the cuts.

• Loni Venegas beat the bottoms of his feet with a bamboo stick so he could barely walk. She whacked his hands until they were swollen.

• Several times, she choked him to the point where his vision blurred and he was seeing spots. Sometimes he was unable to talk afterward.

• After he urinated on the floor because she wouldn't let him use the bathroom, she forced him to lie down and mop it up with the clothes he was wearing. Then she stomped on his head. His chin was split and he needed stitches.

• She made him get in the tub to clean it then ran scalding water, burning his feet.

Spears said that the complaints it had received didn't include some of the more shocking details, like the scalded feet. She said they plan a thorough review of the case.

The boy is currently in foster care.

Troyer said it doesn't really matter who might be at fault.

"The bottom line is somebody needs to fix it so it doesn't happen again," he said.

Seattle Times staff reporter Brad Haynes and news researcher Miyoko Wolf contributed to this report.

Maureen O'Hagan: 206-464-2562 or mohagan@seattletimes.com