By Ed Williams, Searchlight New Mexico
One evening last December, a 14-year-old foster youth sexually assaulted a child four years younger than himself in the Albuquerque office of New Mexico’s Children, Youth and Families Department. It happened, according to police, in a bathroom near the facility’s outdoor playground, as a CYFD supervisor was chatting on a personal phone call. The incident was reported to State Police about an hour later, when a CYFD worker dialed 911. “Something sexual happened” between two children, she told the dispatcher. Though the 10-year-old was plainly traumatized, CYFD began making arrangements to transfer him to a youth homeless shelter in Santa Fe.