NEW YORK, NY January 31, 2006 —The head of the Administration for Children's Services answered city council members' questions for more than four hours yesterday about what went wrong in the case of 7 year old Nixzmary Brown. WNYC's Cindy Rodriguez was there.

The chambers were full to capacity but the hearing was surprisingly calm. Commissioner John Mattingly readily admitted caseworkers within his agency missed two opportunities to protect Nixzmary Brown. He said after the child missed 46 days of school, caseworkers should have at a minimum referred the family to a child abuse prevention program. Instead the report was labeled unfounded and the case was closed.

A case review also found that the school Nixzmary attended was so concerned about her safety they did not want to let her go home. But caseworkers again did not recognize the gravity of the situation and later failed to get a warrant to enter the home.

Council speaker Christine Quinn said decisions about getting warrants should be made by higher level staff.