In re Amir S. CA2/4

BACKGROUND

Amir came to the attention of the Los Angeles Department of Children and Family Services (the Department) in January 2012, when he was three months old. The Department received a referral for allegations of caretaker absence/incapacity and emotional abuse of Amir and his half-sister by their mother, Shelly S. (mother).2 Mother’s roommate had called the police to report that mother overdosed on medication. When the police arrived at mother’s home, mother was outside, throwing up. The children were inside the house, in different bedrooms, sleeping. When the ambulance arrived, mother became belligerent and had to be restrained. While she was being transported to the hospital to be evaluated by a psychiatrist, mother told the ambulance workers that she overdosed on her daughter’s psychotropic medication because she “wanted to end it all.” At the time of the incident, father was incarcerated in Santa Ana, and was possibly going to be deported back to Afghanistan.

1 Further undesignated statutory references are to the Welfare and Institution Code. 2 Mother is not a party to this appeal, which does not involve Amir’s half-sister. Therefore, our discussion of the facts…