CHILDREN COMMITTING SUICIDE AT YOUNGER AGE.

Byline: Troy Anderson Staff Writer

An analysis of 2,148 child deaths in Los Angeles County from 1991 to 2001 revealed that the number of homicides has dropped to historic lows, but the age of children committing suicide has also dropped to an all-time low of 9 years old.

Of the deaths referred to the county's child death review team by the coroner from 1991-2001, a total of 497 children were killed by parents, relatives and foster parents in the county, including 158, or 32 percent, that the child protective system had open or closed cases on.

In that time period, 324 children died from undetermined causes, including 63 with open or closed cases with the county Department of Children and Family Services. Officials suspect that many of these cases were homicides.

The analysis of child deaths was performed for the Daily News by the county's Inter-Agency Council on Child Abuse and Neglect in El Monte. The deaths included homicides at the hands of parents or caregivers, drownings and suicides for children 17 and under and accidents and undetermined deaths for children 14 and under.

DCFS officials said many of the children who died came into the system with very serious health problems that led to their deaths, including severe asthma, mental retardation and physical deformities, AIDS and cerebral palsy.

About 1,500 children die each year in the county, mostly involving the deaths of premature babies. Of those, the coroner investigates the deaths of about 800 children a year. ICAN reviews 350 to 400 of those deaths and performs a comprehensive review on about 100 of them.

ICAN executive director Deanne Tilton Durfee said the large number of deaths in the county is a very sad and tragic reality.

``The only good news is that homicides by parents and caretakers is the lowest it's been since we started collecting data,'' she said.

The number of homicides in 2000 and 2001 - 35 each year - was the lowest since ICAN began tracking the deaths in 1989. In 1991, the number of homicides hit a high of 61. In 2001, a record of five foster children were homicide victims.

From 1991-2001, 280 children in the county committed suicide, including 68 whose families had open or closed cases with the DCFS.

In 2001, there was a substantial increase in the number of suicides committed by those under age 13, including five victims under 13. One, 9-year-old Kerry Brooks, hanged himself with a shoelace from the closet door at his Compton foster home, becoming the youngest child suicide in county history.

From 1991-2001, 1,047 children died in the county from accidental deaths. Of these, 215 had open or closed cases with the DCFS. For the third year in a row, the leading cause was auto-pedestrian accidents in 2001, including children backed over in driveways, hit by vehicles while walking, riding bicycles or riding scooters.

Nationally, between 1,100 and 2,000 children die each year as a result of child abuse and neglect. Of the 1,236 deaths in 2000, 85 percent of the children were under age 6. In most cases, children die at the hands of their parents, according to a report by the New York City-based Children's Rights.

In 1.2 percent of cases, the perpetrator was a foster parent, in 4.1 percent a day care provider and in 3.5 percent a relative.

In 9 percent of the 1,225 deaths in 2001, the children's families had received family preservation services in the five-year period prior to the child's death. Less than 1 percent of the child fatality victims had been returned from foster care to their families prior to their deaths.