A Department of Children and Family Services supervisor fired after the 2013 beating death of an 8-year-old Palmdale boy is close to getting his job back.
The county’s civil service commission issued the proposed decision this week to reinstate Gregory Merritt despite the determination by child welfare chief Philip Browning that he had “egregiously” missed multiple opportunities to save Gabriel Fernandez.
The boy’s mother and boyfriend are awaiting trial on charges of capital murder and a special circumstance of torture. They have pleaded not guilty, according to the Los Angeles Times.
The pair allegedly beat Gabriel to death after dousing him with pepper spray, forcing him to eat his own vomit and locking him in a cabinet with a sock stuffed in his mouth to muffle his screams, according to court records. Detectives who searched the family’s apartment found a wooden club covered in Gabriel’s blood.
In the months before the boy was killed, several agencies had investigated allegations of abuse without removing him from the home, The Times reported. Shortly before the boy’s death, Merritt and social worker Patricia Clement decided to close Gabriel’s case, according to the newspaper.
According to a brief by DCFS lawyers in support of Merritt’s firing, Clement sometimes did not complete her required visits and did not document them properly, The Times reported. By her own account, Clement failed to interview Gabriel privately, as called for by department guidelines.
She and Merritt also were aware that the boy had written a suicide note and had a BB gun pellet embedded in his chest. Yet he was not sent for medical treatment or mental health assessment, the lawyers said, according to The Times.
Browning fired Merritt, Clement and two other social workers over the case; Merritt appealed. The five-member civil service panel, which is appointed by the county Board of Supervisors, voted unanimously to reinstate him, imposing a 30-day suspension in lieu of termination.
—City News Service
CORRECTION: An earlier headline on this story erroneously implied that the social worker had a part in the beating. This is incorrect and the headline has been changed. MyNewsLA apologizes for the error.