The family of the 13-year-old who was allegedly killed by his soccer coach is suing Los Angeles County and the City of Los Angeles for failing to perform a background check on the coach who is said to have subjected the boy to grooming and sexual abuse.
Oscar Omar Hernandez was initially reported missing earlier this year on March 28 after he failed to return to his San Fernando Valley home from visiting his soccer coach in Lancaster. His body was found days later in a ditch off the side of Harbor Boulevard in Oxnard.
The 7th grader’s family was quick to point to the coach, Mario Edgardo Garcia Aquino, as a suspect, since he was the last person known to be with him. Garcia Aquino, 43, was later arrested for an unrelated sexual assault case, and on April 7, L.A. County District Attorney Nathan Hochman formally charged him with one count of murder with the special circumstance allegation of murder during the commission or attempted commission of lewd acts with a child.
It was later found that Oscar died from acute ethanol intoxication, and the manner of death was ruled by the L.A. County Medical Examiner’s Office as a homicide.
The medical examiner’s office did not specify specifically how he may have been killed by ethanol intoxication; however, the National Institutes of Health states on its website that acute ethanol intoxication results from the ingestion of large amounts of ethanol, usually in the form of alcoholic beverages, and that the demographic most likely to present for acute alcohol intoxication is adolescents and young adults.
On Monday, it was announced that Hernandez’s family filed a lawsuit against both the city of Los Angeles and L.A. County alleging failure to perform a thorough background check on the coach, who, according to the complaint, is also accused of grooming and sexually abusing the boy. The complaint also alleges that both entities failed to properly supervise coaches using their facilities.
Oscar’s brother Daniel, through tears, pleaded for justice at Monday morning’s press conference as the family’s legal team claimed that the DA’s office was slow to file charges on two previous criminal complaints against Garcia Aquino due to a backlog of cases and that he should have been arrested sooner.
Attorneys also stated that coaches must apply to use public parks — including the one Oscar first met Garcia Aquino at and others they trained at across the San Fernando Valley — and the family’s trust in the coach came from the fact that he was supposedly allowed to coach at public parks.
“What we are saying is that the city and county did not do enough in their oversight and supervision,” attorney Michael Carrillo said. “He was not a County Parks employee or a City Parks employee…we are saying that they did not do enough to supervise his activities, especially when there are multiple allegations prior to Oscar going missing.”
If convicted as charged, the traveling soccer coach could face the death penalty, as Hochman ended a moratorium on that form of punishment in March.
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