The entrance to San Francisco’s Human Services Agency located on Mission Street in San Francisco. The agency oversees the city’s child protective services unit.
Megan Cassidy/S.F. Chronicle
The toddler had been dead for hours by the time police arrived.
Officers who responded to the suspected overdose of 2-year-old Stevie Price would later describe the Mission Dolores apartment where she lived as a “hoarder house;” seizing glass pipes and suspected fentanyl powder alongside infant formula, a pacifier and bottles of solidified milk.
Officials suspect the child died overnight on Feb. 12, after ingesting fentanyl that was left within her reach. The girl’s mother, Michelle Price, and mother’s boyfriend Steve Ramirez were swiftly arrested and charged with child endangerment.
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But police and court records raise additional questions about whether authorities should have also done more to prevent Stevie’s death, revealing that child protective services had investigated allegations against her mother’s care for the girl in at least four earlier cases.
Two of the cases, both involving neglect allegations, were still open; the most recent case opened in November, according to police and prosecutor reports. Another neglect case was substantiated, and a fourth case, which alleged unsafe living conditions, drug exposure and failure to supervise Stevie and another child “despite repeated intervention,” was deemed inconclusive, prosecutors said.
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A CPS employee told police that Stevie had also been born with fentanyl in her system, a finding that can trigger a mandatory report to child welfare authorities.
It was not immediately clear how CPS investigated the cases or whether the agency ever removed or attempted to remove Stevie from the home. Officials with the San Francisco Human Services Agency, which oversees child protective services, declined to respond to a list of questions about Price’s cases or general policies about their investigations.
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“The San Francisco Human Services Agency is committed to keeping children safe in San Francisco,” agency officials said in an emailed statement. “Due to confidentiality and other provisions of law, we are unable to provide comment on individual cases.”
Despite San Francisco’s seemingly intractable opioid crisis, deadly overdoses of babies and children here are rare. A Chronicle review of data collected by the city’s medical examiner’s office shows only one child under the age of 15 — a 14-year-old girl — died of an accidental overdose between 2020 and 2025.
A baby was hospitalized last year following a suspected fentanyl overdose on Treasure Island, and two people were charged with child endangerment.
Elsewhere in the Bay Area, babies and young children have died from fentanyl exposure over the last several years, including two in Santa Rosa, and two in San Jose. Some of the parents involved in these cases were charged with murder, as was a dealer who allegedly supplied drugs to the parents in both separate San Jose cases.
Similar to Stevie’s case, officials said CPS officials responded to the San Jose home of 3-month-old Phoenix Castro on multiple occasions in the months preceding her death, but never removed her from the home. The controversy surrounding her death helped spark sweeping reforms for Santa Clara County’s Department of Family and Children’s Services, though social workers have continued to raise the alarm over understaffing, according to investigations by Bay Area News Group.
Prosecutors asked that a judge keep Price in jail while she awaits trial, and castigated a magistrate judge that ordered her release after she was arrested last month. She was not listed as in custody by Friday, according to jail records. Her next hearing is scheduled for April 16.
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“A two-year-old child was found deceased in a residence saturated with fentanyl, drug paraphernalia and extreme filth, and the magistrate was aware that open CPS cases existed involving ongoing neglect of this very child,” Assistant District Attorney Leigh Frazier wrote in the Feb. 14 motion. “Prior CPS supervision, formal interventions, and monitoring failed to prevent continued neglect, ongoing drug use in the residence, and ultimately the death of the child.”
Prosecutors said Price did not currently have any children in her care, but asked that she be jailed to ensure she has no access to children or other vulnerable people.
Price and Ramirez were both charged with felony child endangerment and other crimes including the possession of drugs and drug paraphernalia.
But records show police have also been investigating the pair for potential murder charges, and prosecutors could potentially tack on additional charges at a later date. Prosecutors said in court records last month that, while preliminary testing showed fentanyl in Stevie’s system at the time of her death, official toxicology results were pending.
Attorneys for Price, who is being represented by the public defender’s office, declined to comment for this story. An attorney for Ramirez did not respond to requests for comment.
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San Francisco police responded to a 911 call from an apartment on the 3800 block of 18th Street at about 5:30 a.m. on Feb. 12 after receiving a report that a child wasn’t breathing, according to court records.
Paramedics who also responded to the scene noted signs of rigor mortis, prosecutors said, “indicating the child had been dead for several hours.”
Prosecutors described the apartment as “filthy and in extreme disarray;” scattered with drug paraphernalia including pipes, lighters and small torches. On the bed, officers said they found a white powder that they later identified as fentanyl. They also recovered a used container for Narcan, an over-the-counter drug used to reverse an opioid overdose.
Prosecutors said both Ramirez and Price lived at the apartment with Stevie, though it was not immediately clear whether Ramirez was her father. Officers said Price appeared to be under the influence when they arrived, and that Ramirez attempted to flee the scene on a bicycle. Officers chased Ramirez and arrested him, allegedly seizing glass pipes with burnt residue nearby.
Prosecutors said Ramirez has a criminal history involving prior convictions for domestic violence and arrests for child endangerment, sexual offenses and narcotics violations. Officials also noted that CPS substantiated three allegations of child neglect against Ramirez, in 2011, 2012 and 2013.
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Mo Abuershaid, a Southern California attorney who specializes in CPS defense cases, said authorities must meet a high legal standard to remove a child from their home. Social workers must determine that the child faces an immediate risk of serious harm, and that there are no other means to protect their safety.
This means the agency is required to consider less restrictive measures first, Abuershaid said, like implementing a safety plan, arranging for supervision by another adult or providing at-home services.
“Even in situations involving unsafe living conditions or the presence of drugs, removal is not automatic if CPS believes the risk can be mitigated,” Abuershaid said.
“However, cases involving direct harm to a child — such as a drug exposure or overdose — combined with hazardous home conditions would typically weigh strongly in favor of removal if the danger remains unresolved,” he said. Abuershaid, who is not involved in Stevie’s case, said he couldn’t speculate as to why CPS didn’t remove the child.