Jazzmin Escobar

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Three months before Jazzmin Escobar died because of what her uncle described as a tumble down the stairs to a cement floor, her older brother told a caseworker that the same uncle scratched behind his ears and whipped him. The preschool aged boy growled and clawed at a coffee table with his fingernails to show how his uncle made the marks. But the uncle, Jose Cruz Zapata, told the caseworker the little boy fought with a girl at his daycare center and sometimes scratched his own ears. The caseworker’s assessment was labeled inconclusive. That allegation was only one of many against Jazzmin’s relatives, going back to before she was born.

 

The first referral on Jazzmin’s family was for her mother because she was on drugs while pregnant with one of Jazzmin’s older sibling. This allegation was not investigated further because she was still “early in her second trimester.” Before Jazzmin was two, someone called and reported two children wandering alone in the street. Her mother had fallen asleep on the couch and was awakened by police officers. She installed a safety device on the front door. The case was closed. A year later, Jazzmin’s father, Alanm Escobar, called Arapahoe County social workers to say he needed help raising four kids after Jazzmin’s mother was still allegedly using drugs and had gone missing. Two of the children, Jazzmin’s half siblings, went to foster care, but Jazzmin and her brother remained with their father under caseworker supervision.

 

The children went to stay with their uncle Jose Zapato. On Feb. 25, 2009 Jazzmin died of severe head trauma,after falling down the outside stairs at her uncle’s apartment. He said he set her on the couch afterward. He did not call 911 for 25 minutes. No charges were filed. After Jazzmin’s death, the county took Zapata’s child into protective custody. Three years later, the baby’s mother, who is no longer with Zapata, is still fighting to get her son.“I lost my daughter and she’s losing her son,” Escobar said, as his sister wept on the couch across his living room. “Our family, we’ve been through a lot. They feel obligated to protect my nephew, but who are they protecting him from?"  “What happened with my daughter was an accident,” said Escobar.

 

 

 

 

 

http://childfatalities.denverpost.com/#id=11&name=EscobarJazzmin