(RepublicanDaily.org) – Three-month old Baby Phoenix died of fentanyl and methamphetamine overdose after local county officials from San Jose, California, turned over custody of the infant to her father, a drug addict with several priors for drug use.
Officials from Santa Clara County had earlier boasted about lowering child removal rates, ostensibly because they had also lowered the threshold for child removal from what the government deems dangerous environments. County officials reasoned that the threshold was lowered in the interest of “racial justice.”
Both parents, David Castro and Emily De La Cerda, were addicts. The two met at a drug rehab program. De La Cerda also died of overdose shortly after the death of her daughter.
County officials had also received repeated warnings from the neighbors of Castro and De La Cerda, saying that the home environment the two were in was unsafe for the child. True enough, various drugs and drug paraphernalia were found close to the baby’s milk bottle when her body was discovered by authorities. In addition, Castro had other children who were also removed from his home due to his rampant drug use prior to the change in county policy on child removals.
Police from the San Jose Police Department arrested Castro for the death of Baby Phoenix, where more drugs and other paraphernalia needed for their use was found in the home.
Officials are now trying to keep Castro in custody in order to protect his other children, a 4-year-old boy and a 3-year-old girl. Prosecutors from the District Attorney’s office filed a motion seeking that the suspect be held with no bail, given his priors and his “unwillingness to curb drug use” as well as inability to provide a “safe environment for his loved ones.” Prosecutors are also seeking to bar Castro from seeing his other children, citing the death of Baby Phoenix. Castro has two felonies and 16 misdemeanors, eight of which are drug related crimes that go as far back as 2011.
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