Las Vegas police are seeking to arrest the foster mother of a 7-month-old boy who died of head injuries in August.

The Clark County coroner's office this week ruled that the death of the infant, known as "Baby Boy Charles," was a homicide.

On Aug. 2, emergency personnel were called to the foster mother's home, in the 2700 block of Dune Cove Road near Sahara Avenue and Fort Apache Road, by someone who said the child was not breathing, according to a Clark County Department of Family Services report. The infant's skull had been fractured, and he died in the hospital two days later, authorities said.

According to the Family Services Department report, authorities were told that "another child had pushed the baby down."

But Lt. Brian Evans of the Metropolitan Police Department's abuse and neglect unit said, "These injuries are not consistent with a child falling or slipping.

"You would really have to go out of your way to hurt a child in this manner," Evans said.

The boy had been Melanie Ochs' foster child since shortly after he was born, and police plan on filing a warrant today to seek Ochs' arrest on a charge of murder by child abuse, Evans said.

The district attorney's office will determine whether to file the charge against Ochs.

Two other children, ages 2 and 3, were in Ochs' custody, and they were removed from the home after the infant was injured, authorities said. Police said the two older children had been adopted by Ochs.

A Review-Journal birth announcement listed a girl born April 12, 2004, to Melanie Ochs and Laurence Tokarski, who is the co-owner of the 2,260-square-foot house on Dune Cove. Whether that child had also been removed from the home was unclear Wednesday.

No one answered the door at the home on Wednesday night.

Stuart Levy, 58, who lives across the street from Ochs and Tokarski, said that they are wonderful around children and that he "would be highly surprised" if they had anything to do with harming any child.

Although the Family Services Department report said that the infant who died was an 8-month-old, Evans said the infant was born Dec. 31, so he had just turned 7 months old when he died. Evans also said the infant had drugs in his system when he was born.

Ochs had been caring for him since Jan. 3, Evans said.

A special state panel was formed earlier this year to examine failures of the Clark County child welfare system and problems with investigations into the deaths of children in the protective custody of the county.

Eric Albers, a professor of social work at the University of Nevada, Reno, is one of the members of the Blue Ribbon Panel for Child Death Review, and he said the news that Charles' death had been ruled a homicide "is catastrophic."

The panel has been reviewing 79 suspicious child deaths that occurred in Clark County between 2001 and 2004. The deaths should have been investigated for abuse and neglect and were not, according to a review conducted for the state earlier this year.

The panel has been lobbying both the state and county for access to recent cases involving suspicious child deaths of juveniles who had active cases within the Clark County Department of Family Services. That request has not been granted.

At the panel's September meeting, Charles' case was identified as one in which the panel had special interest.

This death of a child in foster care underlines why the panel needs to review recent cases, said Assemblywoman Susan Gerhardt, D-Henderson, another member of the panel.

Although Clark County has said that its practices have been changed and improved since the state review was conducted, the panel has no way to verify that.

"We have been asked to make recommendations on how to improve the system," Gerhardt said. "And I don't feel we can do that until we see what's going on now. We've been given oversight, and we've got to be able to show the public that they can have confidence in the system."

Regarding Charles' death, Clark County spokeswoman Gina Olivares said the county "will continue to cooperate with any investigation into this tragedy."

"Our thoughts and prayers are with this infant and his extended family," Olivares said.

Since Charles' death, three other children who had contact with the Clark County child welfare system have died, including 15-month-old Joshua Sharp, who stopped breathing Aug. 15 at Child Haven, the county's shelter for abused and neglected children.

About a week before Joshua died, the federal government sent a letter to the state's Department of Health and Human Services that chastised it for not improving conditions at Child Haven, including overcrowding.

In late August, the National Center for Youth Law, an Oakland-based nonprofit, filed a class-action lawsuit in federal court on behalf of abused and neglected children in Clark County.

The lawsuit alleged that the Department of Family Services places children in unsafe homes and overcrowded facilities such as Child Haven and does not adequately monitor foster parents and foster homes.

The lawsuit cited the case of 14-month-old Jushai Akua Spurgeon, who was scalded to death in April 2005 while in the care of a foster mother in North Las Vegas. The lawsuit alleged that the Department of Family Services never investigated complaints from Jushai's biological father that the child was being mistreated.

"There is a level of criminal negligence that exists in that agency," said William Grimm, senior attorney with the National Center for Youth Law. Charles' death being ruled a homicide "just speaks to the urgency of the problems and the need to reform the system," Grimm said.

The county recently disclosed the first phase of its plan to improve the Department of Family Services, which includes hiring 150 more social workers, reducing the number of children at Child Haven and stopping the practice of housing children under 6 at the facility, improving staff training and changing policies to improve abuse and neglect investigations.

The plan, known as "Safe Futures," is expected to cost between $25 million and $30 million. On Tuesday, the Clark County Commission approved hiring 55 social workers for the Department of Family Services.

The ACLU of Nevada and San Francisco-based Youth Law Center are negotiating with the county to change the child welfare system.

As for the case of "Baby Boy Charles," Gary Peck, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Nevada, said, "At this point, these are just allegations (against the foster mother). But if they are proven to be true, it would underscore the need for the county to do a better job of recruiting, overseeing and supporting appropriate foster families."

Review-Journal writer Lisa Kim Bach contributed to this report.