Linda Newell

DENVER -- Legislation was introduced Thursday with Senate Bill SB 10-171, that would institute an independent ombudsman to look into child abuse cases if a person reporting the abuse believes the county human services workers are not doing enough.

“We cannot wait for one more child to be bruised, starved or even die while in our protective custody,” said State Sen. Linda Newell, D-Littleton, who sponsored the bill. “Over the past three years, there have been 32 deaths of children while in our protective custody.”

The bill follows a three-year CALL7 Investigation that showed the Denver Department of Human Services repeatedly failed to save the lives of children that were supposed to be under DDHS protection.

The investigation started after the death of Chandler Grafner. He was starved in a closet despite his school making repeated referrals to DDHS about possible abuse.

CALL7 Investigators found other cases, including Destiny Lewis, who died despite hospital officials telling DDHS that her mother could not care for her outside the hospital.

“If the doctors and nurses who were concerned about Destiny Lewis had a place to call besides social services, Destiny Lewis could be alive today,” said Shari Shink, executive director of the Rocky Mountain Children's Law Center. “The same thing with Chandler Grafner.”

Gov. Bill Ritter said this bill offers extra protections for the children of Colorado.

“I think inserting a process like this that gives citizens the ability to voice their concerns to an independent ombudsman and say this is not right,” Ritter said. “I do think at the end of the day that has very much the possibility of saving lives.”

This is the second piece of legislation following the 7News investigation designed to protect children. There have also been more than 25 policy changes designed to protect vulnerable children, including a training center for county workers.

Ritter is also pushing to pool resources in regions to improve rural human service response and set up a statewide call center to report abuse cases, but counties are opposing those changes