Local News Blog#4

"3-year-old girls body believed found" from DenverPost news feed
http://www.denverpost.com/ci_6985082

A couple days ago I heard about the story of the missing body of 3 year old Nevaeh Gallegos, which is currently all over the news board. Today I watched an update of her story on 9News and it gave me such strong feelings I felt I had to find more about it on the Denver Post website. Denver police officers believe to have found her body on September 24 in west Denver. It was three days before that the mother, Miriam Gallegos and her boyfriend Angel Montoya, were both arrested in connection with the little girls death. It turns out that as the investigation goes one, Montoya has a record of being arrested as a juvenile for indecent exposure and is a registered sex offender. As I read this, my stomach began to ache, which caught me by surprise. I didn’t think that this event would have such a big impact on me. I asked myself: Why did this make me feel so much anger and hurt? I believe part of it was that it happened here in Denver, the place that I call home. I think that whenever we hear something terrible on the news, we think, "Thank goodness that didn’t happen here," and we don’t make a big deal about it because of that relief. I think to myself about how self-centered we are as people. I’m not saying there aren’t people who don’t help out during situations like these, but there is a fair amount of people who do nothing to help out the cause. My heart was comforted as I read that, "About 200 volunteers searched the Capitol Hill area over the weekend for the body of Niveah Gallegos. The Denver Police Department's Crime Stoppers program posted a $2,000 reward for information leading to the location of the girl's body". After I read this, I thanked God for those volunteers and their willingness to help out in their community. It made me feel a little better knowing that I can trust my community during times such as these.
Another thing I focused on while I read this article were the actions Social Services took before this terrible, heart-breaking event happened. (Now I know that not all the facts of this investigation have been revealed, so I can only base my opinion off what is publicly known). I watched an interview with a woman who was an administrator from Social Services on 9News. As background information, my sources told me that it was last year when Neveah Gallegos' her mother took her into the hospital and they verified that the baby girl had been sexually assaulted. By law, the hospital has to report information such as this to Social Services. Now what bothers me most is that Social Services let the mother of this child still take care of her after they had retained this nauseating information. I don’t like seeing separation between young children and their parents, but in this case, I believe that it would have been in the best interest of the child. I don’t think the mother was doing her job as a parent, and because of that, I think Social Services should’ve stepped up to the plate and took care of this child. Giving the mother back her child just risked that baby her life. I believe that this sickening tragedy could’ve been avoided if the child had been taken out of that living environment. There are just some people that should not have children, and I think that this young woman is one of them. A Denver police officer said, "A little girl’s body is out there. That shouldn’t happen to anyone". I agree 110% with that because no child deserves such a life as this.