The president of the San Jose/Silicon Valley NAACP is calling for a criminal investigation into the leaders of Santa Clara County’s child welfare agency and their bosses he believes are partly responsible for the fentanyl overdose death of Baby Phoenix and the stabbing death of 6-year-old Jordan Walker.
In a news conference in front of the Santa Clara County Government Center building Monday, NAACP President Sean Allen said those leaders should be held as accountable as Baby Phoenix’s father who is now facing murder charges.
“We believe that the District Attorney should be looking at those county leaders who are involved in that decision making and their culpability in regards to the crime of manslaughter,” Allen said.
In a statement Monday, the county responded that “there is no basis whatsoever to suggest that any county leader committed a crime associated with these tragic deaths.”
Instead, the statement said, “the county has demonstrated its commitment to thoroughly evaluate and continuously improve its child welfare system. The call for a criminal investigation is a distraction from the real work the county is carrying out to protect our children, families, and communities.”
Both baby Phoenix Castro, who died in 2023 after being sent home with her drug-abusing father, and Jordan Walker, who was stabbed to death a few months later allegedly by an uncle after being placed in his grandmother’s care, were under the supervision of the county’s Department of Family and Children’s Services.
Investigations of those deaths by the Mercury News and the state Department of Social Services led to calls for an overhaul of the agency, which is underway. The agency’s director at the time, Damion Wright, resigned and has since been replaced by longtime agency leader Wendy Kinnear-Rausch.
In a July 11 complaint sent to Santa Clara County District Attorney Jeff Rosen, the board of Supervisors and others, Allen names County Executive James Williams, Chief Operating Officer Greta Hansen, County Counsel Tony LoPresti, and Social Services Director Daniel Little, as undermining “essential protections” established to safeguard vulnerable children.
“Their decisions neglected to prioritize the well-being of children and overlooked repeated warnings from social workers and family members against leaving Baby Phoenix with her father,” Allen wrote in the complaint. “This disregard for the warnings ultimately led to the tragic death of Baby Phoenix and other children.”
Although Kinnear-Raush isn’t named in his letter, Allen said Monday that he holds responsible all the leaders involved in the child welfare agency’s leadership when both children died. Most of those named in his email to Rosen were promoted in the months and years after baby Phoenix’s death.
A spokesperson for Rosen, who charged baby Phoenix’s father, David Castro, and his alleged drug dealer, Philip Ortega, with murder, said in a statement Monday that Allen’s letter calling for an investigation is “under review.”
“We don’t comment to anyone on pending investigations — even to state that we are not doing such an investigation or that we are,” the district attorney’s office said in a statement. “The protection of the safety and well-being of children in our community is of the highest importance, and we will continue to work in every way we can to ensure it.”
Accountability by leaders of the child welfare agency has long been a contentious issue among social workers demanding they take some responsibility or at least apologize for their family preservation policies instituted in 2021 that played a role in the decision to send baby Phoenix home. She died at 3 months old. The coroner found fentanyl residue on her pink-flowered onesie.
Allen from the NAACP said it’s not right that baby Phoenix’s father, who had a substance abuse problem, is criminally charged while county leaders who had a responsibility to protect children don’t.
“You’re not a drug addict. You’re not mentally ill — but you made a decision against your own policies,” Allen said of the county leaders. “They knew their policies are designed to protect children, and they ignored those policies, and there’s just no accountability.”
After baby Phoenix’s death, both the Mercury News and the state social services agency found that the county’s welfare agency neglected child safety in favor of keeping families together.
Little, who formerly led the child welfare agency, had instituted a new policy in 2021 aimed at keeping abused or neglected children with their families, believing with proper self-help classes they could become better parents. Although the goal was noble, social workers complained that children were left in unsafe homes.
Those fears were realized with the deaths of baby Phoenix and Jordan Walker. In baby Phoenix’s case, written warnings from a social worker that the newborn could die if put in her father’s care were overlooked. Jordan Walker was left in his grandmother’s care despite repeated pleas from his grandfather that the boy was in danger there.