Amber Cole, second from left, a family friend who sometimes gave Jason Bright a place to stay, is consoled Wednesday while friends Nikole Raechelle, Phillip Jackson and Deion Smith stand by. Jason was shot Monday at 920 Sierra Vista Drive, near Swenson Street. Photo by Samantha Clemens.

As the investigation continues into the death of a 7-month-old boy last week while he was in foster care, two other children who had contacts with the child welfare system have died, police and family members said.

On Saturday, 5-year-old Stephen Garland drowned at a community pool at the mobile home park where his parents live on Nellis Boulevard, near Cheyenne Avenue, Las Vegas police said.

The boy's parents had an open Child Protective Services case because of previous complaints of negligence, said Lisa Teele, supervisor for the department's abuse and neglect unit.

Police said the death appeared to be accidental.

Two days later, Jason Bright, 14, was shot and killed at an apartment complex near Sierra Vista Drive and Swenson Street in a homicide that remains unsolved.

Jason's family said the teen was taken out of their custody and had run away from Child Haven, the county's emergency foster shelter, at least seven times.

Jason apparently was living with friends at the time of his death, said his stepfather, Josh Pipkin, 29.

"I'm not perfect, but my son is gone. They're (county officials) supposed to be better than me," Pipkin said.

The recent string of deaths of children with ties to the Clark County Department of Family Services has shocked critics of the child welfare system and legislators involved in foster care issues.

"Clearly the situation is spiraling out of control," said Assemblywoman Sheila Leslie, D-Reno. "We know it (the child welfare system) has been in crisis, but it's now beyond crisis."

County officials have remained mostly silent on the recent deaths. State law prohibits county officials from discussing any details of the child deaths, said Gina Olivares, a Clark County spokeswoman.

In April, however, District Judge Douglas Herndon ruled some basic information about abuse and neglect cases should be released in fatalities or near fatalities, such as the child's age and whether the child had received any services from the county.

But in those cases, the authorities haven't yet determined if the child died from "abuse or neglect," Olivares said.

Thomas Morton, the new director of the Clark County Department of Family Services, said the department has some institutional problems, such as a lack of training and staff members, which has led him to push for changes to ensure children's safety.

For example, Morton said, he wants to institute four-day training courses for case workers who investigate incidents of abuse and neglect. Currently, there is no training for investigations into such cases, he said.

"Few, if any, of our staff have received specific training about investigations," he said.

Morton also wants to add staff to handle cases. Some staff members are responsible for 15 new investigations per month and up to 70 cases total, he said.

The county has about 2,100 children in foster care.

Morton said he wants to present a list of requests to county officials in November. They will include asking for more services such as increased drug testing resources, he said. It can take up to 90 days for a parent to get drug tested, and children could be in foster care or with the birth family during that time, he said.

But those future changes mean little to Boyd and Pipkin, who joined about 30 people at a strip mall near Swenson Street and Sierra Vista Drive on Wednesday to hold a car wash to help raise money in Bright's name. The car wash was held next to the Sierra Vista Square Apartments, at 920 Sierra Vista Drive, where Bright was shot and killed.

Bright's mother, Deanna Boyd, said her son had been taken out of her custody about two years ago because she was homeless and tested positive for methamphetamine.

Boyd, 37, said Bright had been bouncing from friend to friend for at least a year and was a chronic runaway from Child Haven.

"They were supposed to put him in a foster home," she said.

A family friend who gave Bright an occasional place to stay, Amber Cole, 32, said Bright stayed with a foster family once, but she didn't know the details on where or for how long. But she knew he hated Child Haven.

"He never wanted to be in Child Haven," she said.

County officials wouldn't confirm that Bright was in the county's custody.

Lt. Lew Roberts, of the Metropolitan Police Department's homicide unit, said police were looking into whether Bright was a possible "ward of the state," but hadn't verified it on Wednesday.

The family of the 5-year-old who died on Saturday, meanwhile, will not face criminal charges, said Teele. Garland appears to have died in an accidental drowning and, even though the family had an open Child Protective Services case because of negligence, the mother and other adults were supervising the children playing in the pool.

She said the mother may have taken her eyes off the 5-year-old briefly to watch a 3-year-old, and when she did that Garland jumped into a deep end of the pool.

"This appears to be a tragic accident," Teele said.

All the children were wearing flotation devices, but Teele speculated that Garland may have slipped out of his.

This case follows the high-profile death of a 7-month-old "Baby Boy Charles," the foster child who was in critical condition for two days at a local hospital before dying Friday from his head injuries.

Police are still investigating this case, Teele said.

Still unknown is how the child was injured.

William Grimm, senior attorney with the National Center for Youth Law, a child advocacy group based in Oakland, Calif., who is familiar with the system, said it was impossible to know if the county mishandled any of these recent child fatalities given the information available.

But Grimm said he was surprised to hear of the children's deaths.

"It's unbelievable how often these tragedies are occurring with children who have contact with the child welfare system," he said.

A panel reviewing child deaths recently reviewed 79 child deaths from 2001 to 2004 and found that 11 children in the custody had died.

In one case from 2005, 2-year-old Adacelli Snyder died from malnutrition because she was neglected.

It was later discovered that the county closed a case on Snyder's family about a year before she was found dead.