10 Year Old Boy Murdered After Saying "He Likes Boys"

[Main Pop Girl]

Quote

Investigators said that a 10-year-old child who died recently after years of physical abuse may have come out as gay just before he was killed.

Last Wednesday, the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department responded to a 911 call at Anthony Avalos’s home and were told by his mother Heather Barron that the child had “suffered injuries from a fall.”

He had severe head injuries and cigarette burns on his body, and his mother and her boyfriend Kareem Leiva had been reported numerous times for child abuse.

Anthony was unresponsive and taken to the hospital, where he died a day later.

Since 2013, the Department of Children and Family Services (DCFS) and the police received 16 calls from school officials and family members concerning child abuse by Barron and Leiva. At least 13 of those calls, according to an anonymous source who spoke with the LA Times, were about Anthony specifically, not one of his six siblings.

A 2013 investigation also concluded that Anthony was sexually abused by a grandparent.

DCFS Director Bobby Cagle said that the reports included accusations that Anthony and his siblings were denied food and water, sexually abused, beaten, dangled upside-down from a staircase, forced to crouch for hours, locked in a small room without a bathroom, forced to fight, and told to eat from the trash.

Now DCFS Deputy Director Brandon Nichols said that Anthony “said he liked boys” in the weeks leading to his death. Nichols did not provide any more details, but a DCFS statement said that they are investigating if “homophobia is a factor.”

Anthony’s aunt Maria Barron, who said that she started calling DCFS in 2015 when she noticed bruises on the kids, said that if he came out that “only reinforces how brave Anthony was,” considering the conditions in which he lived.

The death, which followed years of reported abuse, has led to an internal investigation at DCFS. LA County Supervisor Janice Hahn said, “We failed Anthony. I hope to get answers in the coming days as to what went wrong."

After a juvenile court hearing on Tuesday, Maria Barron sounded disappointed that Heather Barron and Leiva have not yet been arrested.“ We were expecting some kind of outcome,” she said. “We were expecting them to at least get arrested.”

 

I try not to get too caught up on news stories like this, but this one in particular really affected me. How absolutely abhorrent on the parents end, and completely heartbreaking for this little boy. But in my opinion, the real people to blame are the DCFS who received and ignored sixteen different reports of abuse, including sexual, physical and verbal. They get paid to protect children and they failed. His blood is on their hands.

[liberation]

You're so right... Of course that the parents are awful people but what shocks me the most is that DCFS failed so hard. It makes me wonder how many children are going through the same and might have the same end due to their incompetence 

[Main Pop Girl]

13 hours ago, victorxcx said:

You're so right... Of course that the parents are awful people but what shocks me the most is that DCFS failed so hard. It makes me wonder how many children are going through the same and might have the same end due to their incompetence 

What a horrible thought... The sad thing is that everyone in that department is probably doing the best they can. I wouln't be surprised if the DCFS is another organisation which Trump cut funding for and they're struggling just like everyone else in the government.  

[SkullPop]

This broke my heart.?