‘NO’ IS NOT ACCEPTABLE
Commitment to children in danger illustrates Spirit of New Mexico
The 7-year-old girl kept slipping through the cracks, falling through the holes, the cruelty of her young life hidden behind a shy smile, a frozen stare. She might as well have been invisible.
But not to Sandra Torres and Carrie L. Pérez.
The two colleagues at Lew Wallace Elementary — Torres was a teacher there last school year, Pérez is the school nurse — saw the little girl. They saw her pain, saw how neglected she appeared, saw that something bad was happening to her — bad enough for them to make repeated calls to social services and law enforcement.
The girl and her brother missed school repeatedly, always on Wednesdays, a half-day at the school. Court documents in the case also indicate that she often came to school hungry, often in need of sleep. Sometimes, she talked about hustling and stealing. Some days, her clothes were so dirty their original colors were
hard to discern, and she reeked of urine. Her neck and chest appeared on occasion to have bruises or hickeys. Once, she came to school wearing white high heels, fake nails and eyeliner.
In November 2017, Torres was helping the girl into some clean clothes and saw blood on her panties, according to court documents. By then, 22 referrals had been made about the girl and her siblings to the state Children, Youth and Families Department. The call about the soiled panties had been the third call in two weeks.
Most, if not all, of those calls came from Torres and Pérez.
Torres remembers hearing one of the investigators describe her as a “pain in the ass” for calling so much.
“And that’s exactly what you should be if you’re doing what’s right to protect a child,” Torres said. “If somebody’s life is in danger, especially a child’s, I’m not going to stop calling until I know she’s safe.”
She and Pérez didn’t stop calling. They called for months.
They wouldn’t take no for an answer. They finally called the Attorney General’s Office, which took action almost immediately.
Today, that little girl is safe, and her parents are in the Metropolitan Detention Center.
The persistence of Torres and Pérez and their commitment to the well-being of children are why they are among the Albuquerque Journal’s 2018 Spirit of New Mexico award winners. They along with the other recipients who make a difference in the community will be feted at a luncheon Jan. 28.
Stories of the accusations — that the little girl was forced to perform sex acts in exchange for drugs, encouraged to steal and pickpocket and panhandle on street corners, that she felt uncomfortable sleeping with her father, that she was left alone in strip clubs where her mother worked and drank — have made headlines.
So, too, have the stories of how authorities with CYFD and the Albuquerque Police Department failed to realize the gravity of the child’s situation— even throwing away the bloody panties instead of preserving them as evidence — and how both agencies ended up re-evaluating how they handled the case.
But this is the story of the two women who did understand the gravity, who saw something bad happening to a child and spoke up, again and again and again until someone acted.
Torres is the fire, an effervescent woman in boots and pearls whose fearlessness is as bright as the ruby red lipstick she favors.
Pérez is the earth, a calming, nurturing presence in nursing scrubs whose hugs are simply part of her nature.
They worked closely together while at Lew Wallace, Torres’ classroom being right across the hallway from Pérez’s nursing office.
“Carrie was the perfect person to team up with, because she has this passion for the wellness of children and wanting to make sure each child is OK,” said Torres, who now teaches at Lavaland Elementary. “It was like we were buddy teachers. If I saw something concerning about a child, I’d ask for her advice and to check me. She is a wealth of resources, too. It was truly a beautiful team, and it worked.”
Earth mother
Carrie Pérez thinks of her role as a nurse not just as caring for the health of an individual but for the health of the community. A healthy community is a happy one, and she and her family spread that happiness through the block parties they are famous for in their Academy Hills neighborhood.
For Christmas, they go caroling and serve bizcochitos, posole and tamales. For Superbowl Sunday, they invite the neighbors over to make their own sundaes. For Halloween, they host a “non-scary” gettogether.
The Pérez family also helps serve a sit-
down meal to homeless guests every Sunday as part of the Bread and Blessings Ministry at Immaculate Conception Catholic Church. Pérez also volunteers her time taking photos of foster children for CYFD’s Heart Gallery of New Mexico.
Pérez is in her third year at Lew Wallace, leaving her job at the University of New Mexico Hospital for a school job so she could spend more time with her children, ages 15, 17 and 19.
Now, she has far more children to spend time with.
“I bring three extra apples each day to school for the kids,” she said. “Apples keep the doctor away, but they also keep nurses happy.”
Pérez also enlists parent volunteers to keep the school stocked with leggings for girls who need a change of clothing but don’t want to wear what’s available from the donated clothing box, much of which consists of odd-colored sweatpants and boys’ pants.
Children, she said, deserve dignity. “They deserve a childhood,” she said. “They need a place to call home. They need to eat and be loved. You don’t come to school to learn with an empty stomach and a heavy heart.”
But when a child needs more than an apple or leggings or a hug, Pérez pulls out her cellphone and rummages through her contact list of people and resources she has acquired over the years with expertise in a variety of subjects. “It’s my network,” she said. One of those contacts is Special Agent in Charge Anthony Maez with the Attorney General’s Office. She met Maez at a human trafficking awareness workshop he presented to the school in January 2018.
“He gave me his phone number and his card and told me to call whenever I needed him, whenever I thought maybe I was seeing the signs of a child in danger,” she said.
She made that call to Maez about the 7-year-old girl. The Attorney General’s Office took the case, and on May 2 agents arrested James Stewart, 38, who is charged with human trafficking, promoting prostitution, criminal sexual contact, child abuse and other crimes. His wife, Teri Sanchez, 38, was arrested a day later on five counts of child abuse and a charge of contributing to the delinquency of a minor.
Both parents are awaiting trial. The girl and at least one of her brothers are believed to be in foster care.
Bringing the fire
Becoming a teacher was almost predestined for Sandra Torres, though she initially tried to avoid it.
She owned a jewelry store. She sold real estate.
“It was awesome,” she said. “But I had no impact on people.”
So 12 years ago, she became a teacher.
Her parents are educators — her mother, Nieves Torres, worked with marginalized, undocumented women; her father, Dr. Eliseo “Cheo” Torres, became vice president of student affairs at the University of New Mexico.
“That’s where my fight was ingrained in me,” she said. “I learned very young that educating others went beyond books, that community is everything.”
Still, she wasn’t completely prepared for what she found when she stepped into her first classroom of 36 fourth-graders at La Mesa Elementary.
“It was just crowd control, just surviving,” she said. “I realized quickly that a lot of these kids needed help. And they needed someone to tell their stories to.”
So she listened. And she learned that, of those 36 students, six came from homes in which at least one parent was severely addicted.
“Teaching encompasses not just the children, but their families, their communities,” she said. “I can’t teach ABCs and 123s if a child doesn’t feel safe.”
Torres began seeking community resources to help not just her students but their parents. She became their voice. And she used that voice to advocate for her students and to protect them.
In between, she earned her master’s degree and became a mother herself. Having a daughter, she said, strengthened her resolve to speak out to help children.
What happened in the case of the 7-year-old girl, one of her students at Lew Wallace, showed her how many holes are in the safety net, how broken the system set up to protect children is, despite the good intentions of social workers and police.
Torres said she met with CYFD Secretary Monique Jacobson and shared her thoughts about the problems she sees from the trenches.
But with Jacobson now out of office, Torres said she stands ready and willing to speak with incoming CYFD Secretary-designate Brian Blalock. So, sir, consider yourself on notice.
“I want to talk to that man,” she said. “The system needs reform. These kids need to be safe. It’s game on now. I must fight. It’s my fight now.”
UpFront is a front-page news and opinion column. Comment directly to Joline at 8233603, jkrueger@abqjournal.com or follow her on Twitter @jolinegkg. Go to www. abqjournal.com/letters/new to submit a letter to the editor.