{"id":177132,"date":"2026-03-04T01:26:07","date_gmt":"2026-03-04T01:26:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/177132\/"},"modified":"2026-03-04T01:26:07","modified_gmt":"2026-03-04T01:26:07","slug":"south-florida-grandmother-grieves-6-year-old-grandsons-death-calls-for-grandparents-to-have-the-same-rights-as-parents","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/177132\/","title":{"rendered":"South Florida grandmother grieves 6-year-old grandson’s death, calls for grandparents to have the same rights as parents"},"content":{"rendered":"

A South Florida grandmother is speaking out about the death of her 6-year-old grandson, Mason, who died last week<\/a>, nearly two months after allegedly being beaten by his mother’s boyfriend.<\/p>\n

Elizabeth Garcia, Mason’s maternal grandmother, is now caring for his two younger siblings. She used the tragedy to advocate for greater legal rights for grandparents to intervene in situations involving a child’s safety.<\/p>\n

“Mason was a unique soul,” Garcia said of her grandson, who was autistic. “He was a puzzle, but a perfectly beautiful puzzle. A gift that I was able to be honored to call his grandmother.”<\/p>\n

Daniel Romero, Mason’s mother’s boyfriend, has been charged with the beating and remains in jail. Authorities are waiting to hear if the charges against him will be upgraded.<\/p>\n

Mason’s mother, Cynthia Hernandez, is also facing several charges, including child neglect, and is currently out on bond. <\/a>Garcia confirmed that Hernandez is “very devastated” and “gets to see the children.”<\/p>\n

Garcia said she believes grandparents need more legal standing to protect their grandchildren.<\/p>\n

“One of my missions as a grandmother is that grandparents should have the same rights we’re allowed to drop them off and pick them up at school. We’re allowed to take them to the doctor… but I should be allowed to intervene in other situations as well for the safety of the children,” Garcia said.<\/p>\n

Mason will be laid to rest on March 14.<\/p>\n

In:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A South Florida grandmother is speaking out about the death of her 6-year-old grandson, Mason, who died last…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":177133,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[13709,6041,44639,265,28,30,29,807],"class_list":["post-177132","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-florida","tag-autism","tag-child-abuse","tag-child-endangerment","tag-crime","tag-florida","tag-florida-headlines","tag-florida-news","tag-south-florida"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/177132","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=177132"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/177132\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/177133"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=177132"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=177132"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=177132"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}