How did a disabled Everman child slip through the cracks? Pray he’s found, demand answers | Opinion

Endangered Missing Person Alerts are issued sparingly to ensure they get urgently needed attention. One issued last week has indeed done that, raising questions about whether a 6-year-old child with serious disabilities slipped through the cracks and, if so, how it happened.

According to Everman police, Noel Rodriguez-Alvarez has been missing since November. Though police initial sent out an Amber Alert, which is focused on likely abductions, this case has every bit of the urgency and peril. Child Protective Services has regularly been involved with his mother, how did the agency just realize, based on an anonymous tip received March 20, that he was missing? Should she have lost custody? Were any neighbors or friends aware of or curious about Noel’s disappearance? Should other social-service agencies or health care providers have raised alarms?

The case involves multiple countries, a deported biological father who is in Mexico, a relocated stepfather and remaining family who are either in Turkey or India. Everyone hopes there is a surprisingly simple explanation, but there’s no time to lose. The Tarrant County District Attorney’s Office should determine immediately if it’s time to build a case.

Noel has serious disabilities including a chronic lung disease that requires medical treatment and occasional oxygen treatment. While some family members said they’d seen the boy recently, Everman Police Chief Craig Spencer said those claims were disproved, though he added that “almost all of them have been highly cooperative” with police.

After the CPS tip, police said, Noel’s mother Cindy Rodriguez-Singh, told them the 6-year-old was in Mexico with his father. When Texas CPS spoke to Noel’s biological father, they realized his mother had lied, because the father is confirmed to have been deported before his son was born.

Police also learned that Noel’s four siblings have been absent from school and their mother had asked Everman ISD about unenrolling them. Noel was not enrolled in school, but should that have raised red flags? So far, Rodriguez-Singh hasn’t cooperated with police.

In addition to the CPS inquiries, Rodriguez-Singh and she also had an extensive criminal history involving alcohol-related offenses. “We’d really like to talk to Mom,” Spencer said Monday.

So far, there’s no physical evidence that Noel has been harmed or taken anywhere. But that seems of little comfort.

“What I do know is that a 6-year-old, severely disabled boy cannot be accounted for and is missing, the mother has not been willing to cooperate with investigators to help us simply assure the child is safe, and we desperately need the public’s help,” Spencer said Sunday.

Of all the Amber Alerts issued in 2021, the majority of kids were found to have been taken by family members, not strangers, and because of custody issues. Just one was due to human smuggling and four were due to criminal activity.

We hope, for Noel’s sake, that his disappearance is due to family issues gone awry, not malice. We hope he is found soon. Whatever happens, the public needs thorough investigation and answers to whether government failed a child so badly in need of protection.

This story was originally published March 28, 2023 at 11:30 AM.