Who is DCS protecting: Itself or the kids who lived in a house of horrors?

Opinion: The Arizona Department of Child Safety should come clean on whether there were prior reports of abuse in a house where two children had been beaten and one was found dead in the attic.

LAURIE ROBERTS   | Arizona Republic

Two children abused, one child dead in the attic and where, you might wonder, was the Arizona Department of Child Services?

Did the agency set up to protect children have prior reports that the parents, Rafael and Maribel Loera, were abusing or neglecting their kids?

Before the 11-year-old recently called 911 to report that she alone for two days and was hungry, that is.

Before Phoenix police say the father set fire to the house, leading to the discovery of what is believed to be her 13-year-old sister’s skeletal remains in the attic.

Before police found that both the 11-year-old girl and her 9-year-old brother had been repeatedly beaten with an electrical cord and a broom handle.

It's an easy question, DCS

It seems a fairly simple question: Did DCS ever have any reports that these kids were in need of help?

DCS refuses to answer it, citing the need for confidentiality. 

Yet the agency threw confidentiality to the winds last week, as it is allowed to do – disclosing that the children already had been adopted by 2017, the year the father says the 13-year-old girl died.

“The Loera’s last adoption was finalized in 2016 which occurred prior to the reported date associated with the remains recently found,” DCS spokesman Darren DaRonco said in a statement issued late last week. “The Department has received no reports on the family since their final adoption in 2016 until we received a report on January 20, 2020.”

OK, but did the department receive reports of abuse or neglect before that final adoption in 2016? (Which, of course, would lead to another question if the answer was yes: What did the agency do?)

Cue DaRonco: “We are working to get as much information to the public as possible under the law. At this time, the specific legal criteria that would allow us to answer your question has not been met.”

Me: "How come DCS can release information about these children’s adoption but not release information about whether or not there were prior complaints of abuse?"

DaRonco: "State law allows DCS to release information if it meets the clarify and correct standard under ARS 8-807. The law states DCS may release information to clarify and correct what has been released publicly. Yesterday, we released information to clarify or correct what had already been published in various articles.”

That's not all the law says

Actually, ARS 8-807 says the agency can “confirm, clarify, correct or supplement information concerning an allegation or actual instance of child abuse or neglect that has been made public by a source or sources outside the department.”

Because the 11-year-old referred to Maribel as her foster mother and it was reported by the media, DCS decided to “clarify and correct” the record to show the agency is off the hook.

But not to "supplement" its report with information the public has a right to know.

Interesting how that works, isn’t it? DCS can tell us the adoption process that would have brought the agency into the home was complete. Nothing to see here.

But it refuses to say whether the agency previously was called to help a group of children who surely needed rescue.

That, we are told, is confidential. 

Leading to me to wonder, just who are we protecting here?

Reach Roberts at laurie.roberts@arizonarepublic.com.