Police take fresh look at the case of tot’s injury

Two years after toddler Peyton Valiente sustained a life-threatening blow to his head and other severe injuries while in the care of his Ewa Beach baby sitter, no one has been charged in the incident.

But Chelsea and Rey Valiente, the boy’s parents, are hoping that recent developments in the case will finally lead to some measure of justice for their only child, who is now 3.

“There’s no doubt that my son was severely abused at the baby sitter’s house,” Chelsea Valiente said Friday.

Valiente said she and her husband believe the case was hindered, in large part, because baby sitter Manuela Ramos is the wife of a Honolulu Police Department officer, Cpl. Mark Ramos.

HPD Acting Chief Cary Okimoto told the Honolulu Police Commission last week that he asked the Criminal Investigations Division to take another look at the case. Separately, he requested that HPD’s Professional Standards Office review the handling of the case, he said.

Okimoto said he was spurred to take those actions by a Feb. 8 article on Civil Beat, an online news site, that raised alarming questions about the handling of what’s been classified as a first-degree assault case.

“I have serious concerns about this case, so much so that I ordered for an administrative investigation of what happened,” Okimoto told the commission. “I want them to really look hard at reopening the case to see if it’s salvageable. I’m asking for an audit … to see where we stand and where we’ve fallen short.”

Okimoto agreed to Commission Chairman Max Sword’s request to provide an update on the matter at the panel’s next meeting, March 1.

HPD has specific protocols in place for child abuse cases such as this, Okimoto said. “That’s why we’re asking for a review of the investigation, to see if those protocols were followed.”

An HPD official told the Honolulu Star-Advertiser on Friday that the case has been on “pending further disposition” status and technically has never been closed.

The incident occurred Jan. 9, 2015. An HPD report filed by Acting Detective Carl Grantham of the HPD Criminal Investigation Division’s Child and Family Violence Detail said the case was turned over to prosecutors Sept. 10. A deputy prosecutor phoned Grantham on May 9, 2016, to say that the case was being declined.

Chuck Parker, a spokesman for city Prosecutor Keith Kaneshiro, told the Star-Advertiser that no charges were brought because the evidence presented did not point to an individual suspect.

There is a three-year statute of limitations on assault cases. Parker said that as is the norm with any case, further evidence in the Valiente investigation could lead to charges before the limit runs out in January.

Valiente said she was furious when she finally was able to see police reports on the case last month that suggested that HPD had been slow to interview the Ramos’ two children, now both adults, and took seven months for the case to be turned over to prosecutors.

“My son was assaulted. There’s no one held accountable to this date,” she said. “Why was nothing more done? Why weren’t they following suggested protocols that the experts say could have and would have found someone accountable?”

Theresa Ramos, 19, and Marcus Ramos, 16, were home at the time of the incident, but detectives did not interview either until months later. Valiente said she was also troubled by indications that no one interviewed other young children under Manuela Ramos’ care that day. Nor was there anything in the HPD reports indicating police had searched the Ramos home as part of its investigation, she said.

Valiente also said that about 12 hours after the incident, the initial detective on the case spoke to Manuela Ramos and her husband, the HPD officer, from a cellphone and gave them assurances that they would be OK.

Valiente said that since the initial determination that there was no evidence to prosecute someone in the case, neither police nor prosecutors initiated any contact with her or her husband about the status of the investigation, and that she was stunned to learn from Civil Beat last month that prosecutors had formally declined to accept the case.

Victim initially alert

Valiente told police that Peyton was playful and alert when she dropped him off with Ramos at about 9 a.m. Jan. 9, 2015, the day of the incident.

At about 3 p.m. Ramos called Valiente and told her that Peyton had thrown up twice after drinking his milk and that she was having difficulty waking him up.

Valiente said she told Ramos to call 911, and rushed to Ramos’ house. She found Peyton breathing slowly and shallowly, and his arms and legs stiff.

After being transferred to the Queen’s Medical Center from Pali Momi, a doctor determined Peyton had sustained a subdural hematoma, a brain bleed, that was caused by blunt trauma. He also sustained bruises to his mid-lower section of his back.

Dr. Susan Steineman, the Queen’s trauma physician who treated Peyton, said the blow to the right side of his head left him with partial paralysis in the left side of his body, one of the reports said. Steineman also stated that Peyton could have died if he had not received treatment, the report said.

The report was filed by Grantham, who took over the case Jan. 12, three days after the incident, from Detective Phillip Buchanan, the CID detective originally assigned to the case.

Valiente, a nurse, said emergency surgery had to be done on Peyton to evacuate the bleeding occurring in his head. A part of his skull bone was removed to lessen the swelling. Days later the boy began having seizures.

An ophthalmologist found extensive bleeding in his eyes and told Valiente that such a condition could only have been caused by forceful shaking. A neurologist told her that the injury to her son’s head resulted in permanent brain damage to his frontal lobe, the part of the brain that regulates emotion, decision-making and attention span, believed to have been caused by what amounted to a serious stroke triggered by the injury, she said.

Slowly, following extensive rehabilitation over the past two years, Peyton has regained much of the motion in his left arm and left leg, but the Valientes have been told he always will be at risk for seizures.

Valiente said that about 12 hours after the initial incident, at about 3 a.m., a representative from the state Child Welfare Services agency informed her that the agency had taken over custody of Peyton from her and her husband because there was no explanation at the time of how he had received those injuries. “For me, that was devastating as a mother,” Valiente said. “We had no consent to do anything; it was all up to the state.”

Valiente said she had to beg social services workers to allow her and her husband to stay at Peyton’s bedside, and that they were allowed to do so provided the room was within view of the nurses’ station and the room door stayed open.

A message from the Star-Advertiser left on Manuela Ramos’ cellphone was not returned.

It took two weeks for a team of medical experts gathered by the state Department of Human Services to conclude in a written report that Peyton could not have sustained the injuries while still with the Valientes. Peyton drank milk while under Manuela Ramos’ care, and it would have been impossible medically for him to do that after sustaining the injuries, the report said.

The team concluded in its report that “the timeline leading to his altered state suggest(s) the harm occurred outside of the care of the parents, and most likely in the babysitter’s home.”

The report also recommended that HPD interview the parents of the other children cared for by the baby sitter.

Meanwhile, Valiente said that during a recorded interview of her conducted by Buchanan at the hospital, Buchanan took a call from Manuela and Mark Ramos. Buchanan, within her earshot, assured Mark Ramos that he and his wife had nothing to worry about, “that it was just protocol,” Valiente said.

She said that when she confronted Buchanan, he simply told her that the conversation took place after he had turned off his recorder.

“That was inappropriate,” Valiente said.

HPD did not respond to requests, by the Star-Advertiser and other media, to speak with Mark Ramos, Phillip Buchanan and Carl Grantham.