Roman Barreras is the latest child who appears to have been failed in every way a child can be — by the people who were supposed to love him, by the system that was supposed to be his safety net.
There is no use in asking why Roman Barreras died. No response can ever solve the incomprehensible puzzle of how a mother could, as police contend, starve her baby boy to death.
The best we can do now is to find out what happened to Roman, how clear warning signs of neglect were missed, and do whatever is necessary to keep it from happening to another child.
His bones were found in a toy chest by a landlord clearing out property the Barreras family left behind when they moved. Roman was probably 3 years old.
Raquel Marcella Barreras, 39, has been charged with first-degree murder and child abuse.
Martin Barreras, the pair’s older children told investigators, knew that Roman was being starved. He’s charged with child abuse. Both parents are in the Pima County Jail.
The facts are stark. Child welfare agency workers removed Roman from Raquel Barreras as a newborn after she tested positive for methadone.
All five of her children had been put into foster care by what was then Child Protective Services but were returned to the care of Martin Barreras. Raquel was ordered to stay away but didn’t.
The Barreras family was on the radar. Relatives were worried about the kids, particularly Roman. They called child welfare officials to report that the boy hadn’t been seen in awhile, and that the family had withdrawn.
Child welfare workers were involved with the family at times. Police visited because the older kids missed so much school. A Tucson Police Department officer was sent to check on the boy’s welfare in November 2012.
The officer sent to investigate allegations of neglect and concerns about Roman’s welfare reported that the boy was “very small and thin for his age” and that the father said he’d never been diagnosed with failure to thrive — yet the case was closed.
It’s not clear from what we know at this point why the officer did not see Roman’s frailness, combined with the obvious disconnect between the boy’s physical condition and his father’s statement, as a huge red flag.
If police had called child welfare workers to evaluate Roman, perhaps the signs of severe neglect would have been seen.
Better training, better communication, better collaboration — it’s clear that gaps between law enforcement and child-welfare services exist.
CPS has been renamed the Division of Child and Family Services and now reports directly to the governor.
It’s one change made in recent months, after the discovery of more than 6,500 reports of child neglect or abuse that had gone uninvestigated.
An agency spokeswoman says that child-welfare hotline workers can now access other state records to help locate families if the person making the initial report doesn’t know where the child in possible danger lives, as happened with Roman.
Making children more safe and helping families in crisis is expensive. It’s hard work. And it is necessary work.
Roman Barreras deserved a life.
He deserved to be more than a symbol of our failure.
