Now, I know I'm going to possibly seen as being insensitive, but.......read this story......I've made the text red on the parts I have comments on.....-----------------------------------------------------
Sorrow, Anger As City Grieves For 3 Boys Dead In Car Trunk
UPDATED: 3:17 pm EDT June 27, 2005
CAMDEN, N.J. -- As authorities began investigating why police failed to search a car trunk where three missing boys were found dead, the father of one of the children said Sunday he could not understand how they died so close to home.
Anibal Cruz, 38, said the family assumed that police looked in the trunk of the car that was parked just steps from where the boys were last seen playing.
"That was the first place to look," Cruz said. "You can look through the windows and check inside. That is simple. Maybe they should have looked in the trunk."
Officials said the boys suffocated after climbing into the trunk on their own. Their bodies were found by David Agosto, whose 6-year-old son Daniel had gone missing along with 5-year-old Jesstin Pagan and 11-year-old Anibal Cruz.
Authorities have said if any law enforcement officials broke department rules in the search they would be disciplined. Police and prosecutors were expected to issue a report within 30 days on the handling of the search.
In addition to the formal review of the search, City Council President Angel Fuentes said the council also will hold a hearing on the matter at its regular meeting Thursday.
"I know my colleagues and I have questions," said Fuentes, whose district includes the area where the boys died.
Cruz also blamed the state Division of Youth and Family Services for his son's death, saying he had called the agency several times in the past year to tell them his son, who was mentally disabled, was wandering away from home into the neighborhood.
However, he said DYFS did nothing to solve the problem.
"If he had been put in a safe place, maybe this would have never happened," Cruz said.
Andy Williams, a spokesman for the state Human Services Department, declined to comment Sunday on whether Cruz made phone calls to the agency, citing confidentiality issue. Williams said the department investigates after every call of potential abuse, neglect or child endangerment.
Dozens of officials had searched for two days for the boys, using helicopters, a bloodhound and divers who searched the nearby Delaware River. On Sunday, Police Lt. Mike Lynch said officials felt many of the same frustrations as Cruz, but said it was premature to speculate.
"Whatever the circumstances are, I can tell you that the efforts of those searchers and those police officers and everyone involved were 100 percent committed," he said.
One of the boys had played previously in the car, which was owned by Anibal's maternal grandmother. It had been sitting for about three weeks in a shaded, weedy corner of the Cruz family's yard.
The hydraulic plunger that keeps the trunk from closing was not working, so the lid was able to swing close and lock as soon as the boys stopped propping it up, prosecutor Vincent Sarubbi said.
Federal law requires cars made beginning in 2002 to have release latches inside the trunk, but the Toyota in which the boys were found appears to have been an older model.
Sarubbi said some periods of hard rain on Wednesday evening may have muffled any noises from the well-insulated trunk, which was parked far enough from the house to make it difficult to hear any voices coming from it.
A joint funeral service for the boys was tentatively scheduled for Wednesday in Camden. Both Agosto and Pagan will be buried Thursday in Camden, while Cruz will be buried in Puerto Rico at a later date.
Meanwhile, community members continued to deal with their grief. A steady stream of visitors stood under the hot sun outside the Cruz home Sunday, placing stuffed animals, balloons, candles and notes in front of a chain-link fence in the yard where the boys were last seen playing together.
For some, the grief over their loss was turning into frustration.
As he paid his respects area resident Luis Rodriguez, 55, asked why the police never thought to look in the car's trunk.
"Why wouldn't they think to look in a trunk? (Crime victims) get stuck in trunks all the time," he said.
At one point in the early afternoon, the scene at the Cruz home turned chaotic as news crews set up cameras on the sidewalk for an expected news conference that never occurred.
It was later learned that several media outlets had received a release from an unidentified man claiming to represent members of the Cruz and Pagan families, as well as their lawyers. However, family members said they did not know the man or why he made the claims.
Council President Delays Second Investigation Into Trunk Deaths
The city council president on Monday backed away from plans to launch an immediate investigation into why searchers looking for three boys found dead in a car neglected to look in the trunk of the vehicle, which was parked where the youths had last been seen.
The bodies were discovered in the trunk Friday night by one of their fathers following a massive, two-day search by law enforcement officials that included tracking dogs, helicopters and boats.
Council President Angel Fuentes said he would wait for a report on the search from the city police department and county prosecutor's office before moving ahead with a separate inquiry.
Fuentes said Camden County Prosecutor Vincent P. Sarubbi asked him to delay a council hearing on the matter, which Fuentes had previously scheduled for Thursday.
"I then agreed that we would not interfere with the investigation," said Fuentes, who also represents the neighborhood where two of the boys lived.
The official report is due July 25. Fuentes said the council will decide after it is completed whether to investigate on its own.
Meanwhile, churches in the neighborhood planned a vigil for the boys on Monday evening.
The bodies of Jesstin Pagan, 5; Daniel Agosto, 6; and Anibal Cruz, 11; were found Friday in the trunk of a beat-up car parked in the yard next to Cruz's home. The discovery came after authorities and relatives had searched for two days for the boys, combing a Camden neighborhood and a stretch of the Delaware River.
On Saturday, officials said the boys accidentally suffocated after climbing into the trunk of the car themselves.
Camden Police Chief Edwin Figueroa said records show the car had been inspected, but it appeared the trunk had not been checked.
Fuentes said that by Monday, $12,000 to $15,000 had been collected for the families of the three boys.
"This is a time for spiritual healing, the community's really coming together," the councilman said.
A funeral service for the youths is planned for Wednesday.
----------------------------------------------------------------So here's the part where Lizzie is being "evil" with her opinions !#1.....If these parents are angry at the cops for not looking in the trunk of the car because it would be the "first place to look" then WHY didn't any of these parents think to look there themselves ?????????????#2.......If it was KNOWN that at least one of these children had been playing in this same car at an earlier date, wouldn't that have been an important place to look first when the parents realized that their children were missing??????#3......ANYONE ever hear of DOOR LOCKS for a car that is sitting unattended in the corner of an overgrown yard??????#4......How DARE one of these parents try to blame DYFS for this ! ! ! ! ! If you have a mentally ill child that has a tendancy to wander away from home you have one of two options. LEASH him or WATCH him ! ! ! ! ! You CANNOT blame others for YOUR negligence ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! !I'll stop there before I begin to get hate mail.......This story simply infuriates me ! ! ! ! ! ! ! These three little boys did NOT have to die. If their PARENTS had been WATCHING them they would've been able to prevent them from playing in the trunk of a car ! If they'd have LOOKED in the trunk of the car that it seems now so much the obvious place to look they'd have likely FOUND the boys before they died ! How DARE they try to blame others for their neglect of their children ! ! ! ! ! ! !I am HOPPING MAD ! ! ! ! ! !
