Child Abuse Case
Gabriel Fernandez was only eight years old when in 2013 he suffered from repetitive, violent, torturous abuse from his mother, Pearl Fernandez, and her boyfriend, Isauro Aguirre. The abuse was so horrific that when news of it hit the wire it received national attention. Gabriel was beaten with a belt buckle, shot with a BB gun, forced to eat cat litter, and locked in a small cabinet for hours at a time, basically treated like an animal and abused inhumanely, starved, burned with cigarettes, and pepper-sprayed. The tragic end result of all this abuse was that Gabriel was one day found unresponsive with a fractured skull. His ribs had been broken and he had serious burns on his body. Within two days, he was dead. This level of abuse may seem rare or extraordinary, but it is not, and it also does not happen in a bubble. There are ways to spot it and prevent it.
Gabriels situation can be explained by the presence of multiple risk factors that made him very vulnerable to this level of abuse. One of the most serious factors was the family situation, characterized by extreme domestic violence. Gabriels mother had a history of
…when the mother refused to leave the room during interviews with children who changed their stories because she was present in the room (Child Welfare Monitor, 2018). The threatening presence has to be removedthat is just common sensebut social workers did not follow protocol. This tragic situation could have been avoidedif only!
