Gabriel Fernandez - 8 year old tortured and beaten to death - verdict reached
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I nearly forgot I had started this thread years ago. I too, as many here, have watched the Netflix documentary. It is clear that the first several years of Gabriel's life was happy and normal while living with his gay uncle and the uncle's life partner. They are actually the ones who brought him home from the hospital.
Further insight provided from the documentary is that the mom was herself abused, including a gang rape that lasted over the span of days. By no means do I mention this as a "oooh, poor abusive parent was herself abused as a child" scenario. Instead, it may shed light on why she picked Gabriel for her whipping boy. She likely singled out Gabriel as the scapegoat for her abuse because she considered him soft for having been in a nurturing household for his childhood, unlike herself.
It was also mentioned that Gabriel expressed to the monsters that he wanted to go back to the uncles, which may be why they concluded that Gabriel must be gay. The grandparents aren't faultless in this either, as they were the ones complaining about the propriety of Gabriel being raised by two homosexuals (for their religious reasons they were uncomfortable with this arrangement). The grandparents pulled Gabriel from his first (and arguably best) home. The bio mom wanted custody of Gabriel for the welfare money, as was explained in the documentary.
To speak to the speculation about the boyfriend's motives and behavior - the documentary explained this as well. There were texts revealed between boyfriend and bio mom where they used Gabriel's torture as a twisted form of sexual foreplay. They also stated that the boyfriend was willing to do anything to keep this "hot" woman in his life, that he wouldn't be able to attract another woman who looked as desirable as bio mom apparently did. For those who haven't seen the documentary, they shared photos of bio mom posed provocatively in a bed with tattoos covering much of her body.
I'm glad they made the documentary of little Gabriel's short and tragic life, to reveal the very many people involved with this one child. How he positively touched their lives, and how many of those whose duty was to protect him actually contributed to his death. I do believe that mom had a bigger role in his torture and death than anyone else, yet she avoided the death penalty. For those who have a penchant for vengeance, she is getting "the treatment" at her incarceration facility, which I read about on another message board.
As a teacher, I am at once grateful and saddened by Gabriel's teacher and her role in all of this. She repeatedly did exactly what she needed to as a mandated reporter, and experienced repercussions professionally for being responsible and following the law. I can only imagine what a hole this left in her heart as well.
I just read the filmmaker wants to make a part two, and wants to interview the killers in this one.
I watched the documentary on this case and I literally couldn’t stomach it. Just so incredibly gut wrenching what this boy went through. I just don’t understand it
Yes, the two siblings will be forever traumatized by the abuse they witnessed. Turns out the abuse was meted out only towards the child that was murdered because they suspected he was gay. They made him go to school dressed in girls' clothes which he would change out of at school, according to the brother's testimony.
They are monsters, the adults who could do this to an innocent eight year old who looked to them as his safety and protection and instead they were his tormentors, torturers, and murderers.
This is the way that Munchausen's Syndrome by Proxy mothers often operate. There may be more than one child in the house, but only one will be targeted and the others will go unmolested.
Unfortunately Arnold will most likely never face death as the death penalty in California has been put on a moratorium (since March of 2019 by California governor Newsom).
One can only hope the prison justice system will take care of things.
Unfortunately Arnold will most likely never face death as the death penalty in California has been put on a moratorium (since March of 2019 by California governor Newsom).
One can only hope the prison justice system will take care of things.
Death row prisoners at San Quentin are in solitary. I think it's much worse than general population. Decades isolated and alone. They get something like 30 minutes outdoors a day, in what looks like a giant dog kennel that has a pull up bar in it. Again alone. There's a post here with a picture somewhere.
Sadly, many problems do not have solutions. This is one of them. Laws and education can't mend broken families. The abuse rates by mom's boyfried or mom's new husband are higher than with birth fathers, for obvious reasons. Psychologists can manufacture new "illnesses" or "disorders, like Munchausen Syndrome, but resentment and anger and hatred are not mental illnesses and we cheapen and undercut the field of psychology when we do this.
I'd like to see the rap sheet on these killers before the murder. Contrary to what you hear, we don't "mass incarcerate" too much. We routinely let out violent people, from murderers and rapists, to spousal abusers and drug dealers, and the overwhelming majority re-offend. We're not serious about violence and separating violent people from society until they're old and no longer have the desire or ability to harm others. More is the pity.
Sadly, many problems do not have solutions. This is one of them. Laws and education can't mend broken families. The abuse rates by mom's boyfried or mom's new husband are higher than with birth fathers, for obvious reasons. Psychologists can manufacture new "illnesses" or "disorders, like Munchausen Syndrome, but resentment and anger and hatred are not mental illnesses and we cheapen and undercut the field of psychology when we do this.
I'd like to see the rap sheet on these killers before the murder. Contrary to what you hear, we don't "mass incarcerate" too much. We routinely let out violent people, from murderers and rapists, to spousal abusers and drug dealers, and the overwhelming majority re-offend. We're not serious about violence and separating violent people from society until they're old and no longer have the desire or ability to harm others. More is the pity.
Neither had prior records that I can see, in fact the boyfriend was a security guard. The mom had an abusive childhood which has always been the biggest pre-disposing factor. She was also found to have a “limited intellectual capacity” by the courts, meaning low IQ, and had only an 8th grade education. She had drug addiction problems as an adult.
People want to think we can jail our way out of these issues but there are layers and layers that have to be addressed including greater access to mental health care and for things like parenting classes especially for those who have been abused in order to breakthrough cycle. We need to make keeping children safe a priority and budget enough for agencies that aim to do that so case workers don’t have 35 kids on caseload and so they can get the best people. They need to do complete psychological work ups before deciding to hand kids back to birth parents (again requires commitment to funding which we don’t do) and more on site supervision when they do. They need cops who believe kids instead of accusing them of lying as they did in this case.
Neither had prior records that I can see, in fact the boyfriend was a security guard. The mom had an abusive childhood which has always been the biggest pre-disposing factor. She was also found to have a “limited intellectual capacity” by the courts, meaning low IQ, and had only an 8th grade education. She had drug addiction problems as an adult.
People want to think we can jail our way out of these issues but there are layers and layers that have to be addressed including greater access to mental health care and for things like parenting classes especially for those who have been abused in order to breakthrough cycle. We need to make keeping children safe a priority and budget enough for agencies that aim to do that so case workers don’t have 35 kids on caseload and so they can get the best people. They need to do complete psychological work ups before deciding to hand kids back to birth parents (again requires commitment to funding which we don’t do) and more on site supervision when they do. They need cops who believe kids instead of accusing them of lying as they did in this case.
Law enforcement alone can’t solve our problems.
Your premise that abuse as a child leads to becoming an abuser as an adult much of the time long ago becmae gospel, but that has been re-examined, and the linked study shows otherwise.
You reference another piece of social dogma, namely the ubiquitous cry, "We can't arrest our way out of crime!" Actually, we kind of did. In the mid-1990s, states began creating three strikes laws, creating mandatory minimums, lengthening prison sentences, including sentences for drug dealers, and so on. Guess what happened? After decades of rising crime rates, those rates began to drop. Precipitously. Drug dealers who end up in prison are usually violent people. Many times, they're associated with gangs. They are the ones who make up most of the drug offenders doing serious time, not marijuana users. And, by the way, inncer-city black Americans were the ones calling for longer sentences back in the 1980s, specifically for crack-cocaine.
My whole thesis is that many problems have no solutions. When I speak of the virtue of mass incarceration, I'm speaking of a mitigating factor. Throwing more money at social workers will not solve problems. First of all, we have no good solutions for kids in abusive homes. The most traumatic thing you can do to a kid is to separate them from their real parents. Yes, even from abusive parents, short of extreme abuse. Our foster system is terrible and is riddled with people looking only to make money being foster parents. Bouncing kids from home-to-home is a disaster. Second, and this will offend some, most of the people who go into social work are the last people who should be going into social work. If there is a profession that needs tough, street-smart, no-nonsense, rational-over-emotive people, it's social work. We usually get the opposite. The field is overwhelmingly female and there are certainly women who fit this bill, but there are many fewer of them than among men. And, at the risk of generating even more offense, the field doesn't tend to attract the best and brightest from our universities.
Neither had prior records that I can see, in fact the boyfriend was a security guard. The mom had an abusive childhood which has always been the biggest pre-disposing factor. She was also found to have a “limited intellectual capacity” by the courts, meaning low IQ, and had only an 8th grade education. She had drug addiction problems as an adult.
People want to think we can jail our way out of these issues but there are layers and layers that have to be addressed including greater access to mental health care and for things like parenting classes especially for those who have been abused in order to breakthrough cycle. We need to make keeping children safe a priority and budget enough for agencies that aim to do that so case workers don’t have 35 kids on caseload and so they can get the best people. They need to do complete psychological work ups before deciding to hand kids back to birth parents (again requires commitment to funding which we don’t do) and more on site supervision when they do. They need cops who believe kids instead of accusing them of lying as they did in this case.
Law enforcement alone can’t solve our problems.
What was really upsetting about him being threatened by the cops was that it appears they didn't even talk to him. Just listened to his mom and took action from there. I can't even begin to imagine the extreme confusion and fear the boy experienced when they "arrested" him and put him in the back of their car.
Even worse, they had some psychologist that would come in to counsel the family and the mom showed the suicide note to the psychologist. The psychologist ended up calling the suicide line... But did they talk to the boy then? No, they talked to the mom and then move on.
What was really upsetting about him being threatened by the cops was that it appears they didn't even talk to him. Just listened to his mom and took action from there. I can't even begin to imagine the extreme confusion and fear the boy experienced when they "arrested" him and put him in the back of their car.
Even worse, they had some psychologist that would come in to counsel the family and the mom showed the suicide note to the psychologist. The psychologist ended up calling the suicide line... But did they talk to the boy then? No, they talked to the mom and then move on.
It is truly horrible just how many people on so many levels let this poor child down. I can't imagine how he felt getting the courage to tell the police only to have them threaten him with jail if he didn't "stop lying".
I wonder how those cops felt after he was killed. I hope they are tortured by it honestly. The filmmaker wants to interview his mom and her boyfriend for part 2 of the documentary, but I would like to hear from all the people down the chain who let him down including that psychologist, the CPS workers and the police.
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