required by law to report suspected child abuse immediately<\/a>.<\/p>\nWhen Lozano\u2019s mother, Clara Gonzalez, asked whether the district had reported the incident to the Department of Children and Family Services, she couldn\u2019t get an answer. Livid, Gonzalez called the child abuse hotline herself, and the hotline worker who answered said the school had not made a report, according to detailed notes Gonzalez took at the time.<\/p>\n
Lozano and Gonzalez said neither the police nor the district would reveal the name of the alleged perpetrator, who he worked for or whether he still worked with children.<\/p>\n
A spokesperson for the Long Beach Unified School District also declined to provide much of this information to the Post. She said: \u201cThe individual referenced worked at Webster through a contracted agency and was removed from the school site and from any contact with students. The individual is no longer assigned to work in the district.\u201d The spokesperson added that the \u201cdistrict notified the contracted staffing agency immediately upon learning of the allegations.\u201d<\/p>\n
In their initial contact with police, the family says information remained scarce. Gonzalez took notes on a call with the detective \u2013 even the person who first saw the incident would not cooperate: \u201cWitness does not want to help so not much they can do,\u201d Gonzalez wrote.<\/p>\n
Since then, she says, any new information has been withheld.<\/p>\n
Nearly two years on, the Long Beach Police Department confirmed to the Post that there\u2019s still an active criminal investigation.<\/p>\n
LBPD said the case had been presented to the Los Angeles District Attorney\u2019s office to determine if charges can be filed, but conflicting accounts from the police and DA show each thinks the ball is in the other\u2019s court. Prosecutors sent the case back to the police for further investigation, according to the DA\u2019s office. The police department said the case was again presented to the district attorney. Lozano expressed disappointment at the finger-pointing and said no one seemed to be taking the case seriously.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s been surreal,\u201d Gonzalez said. \u201cYou would think a child, especially a special needs child, would have been more protected.\u201d Instead, she said it feels as though the school district is protecting itself and the person suspected of abusing her granddaughter. Gonzalez said that feels like being told: \u201cWe don\u2019t matter. My granddaughter doesn\u2019t matter.\u201d<\/p>\n
A spokesperson for the district said that \u201cSupport was provided to the student and family through our school crisis response and counseling team, and we continue to make resources available as needed.\u201d<\/p>\n
But Gonzalez said the family received \u201cnothing at all.\u201d She sought a referral from the police department, and Lozano began taking her daughter to For The Child, a nonprofit that provides services to children who have experienced abuse and neglect.<\/p>\n
Lozano saw some improvement in her daughter\u2019s behavior, she said, but they ended therapy after five or six months. \u201cBecause of the fact that she\u2019s nonverbal, it can only do so much,\u201d she said. \u201cShe can\u2019t talk to me about it and how she feels.\u201d<\/p>\n
Slowly, Lozano has worked to rebuild her daughter\u2019s trust \u2013 brushing her hair, showering her, helping her off the school bus at the end of the day \u2013 but she still acts out and has trouble being separated from Lozano.<\/p>\n
With no answers from the school or police, Gonzalez says she can\u2019t help but wonder, \u201chow many other kids have gone through similar situations?\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Tatianna Lozano knew something was wrong when her 10-year-old daughter\u2019s behavior changed abruptly in December 2023. Lozano was…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":42850,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[131,133,132],"class_list":["post-42849","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-long-beach","tag-long-beach","tag-long-beach-headlines","tag-long-beach-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42849","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=42849"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42849\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/42850"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42849"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=42849"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=42849"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}