GILBERT, Ariz. — A Gilbert family is mourning the death of their son and hoping to help advocate for other families in the process.
According to Mesa Police, 16-year-old James Zoccoli went missing on June 1 after leaving his home and was found unconscious. He died in a hospital on June 9.
VERSIÓN EN ESPAÑOL: Un joven de 16 años murió después de ser encontrado inconsciente en un campamento para personas sin hogar
The Maricopa County Medical Examiner's Office is working to determine how the teen died.
Alisa Zoccoli said James Zoccoli was one of three biological brothers her family adopted in 2010. She said the family had lost one of James Zoccoli's brothers in 2023 after he rode a motorcycle while intoxicated.
Alisa Zoccoli mentioned James Zoccoli, who she said was developmentally delayed, suffered from substance abuse.
“In the last five years, I think he had gone missing, I don't know, maybe 40 or 50 times he had gone missing, and we had always put our concerns out that he needed a higher level of care,” Zoccoli said. “He had spent the last year in facilities where he was locked getting treatment for substance use disorder, opioid use disorder, and he was not in a place that he really wanted to receive treatment, but it was court ordered.”
Alisa Zoccoli said James Zoccoli was put in the Arizona Department of Child Safety's Qualified Residential Treatment Program on May 7 of this year and said she mentioned her son’s "mental health did not seem stable" to his mental behavioral healthcare team.
“He was using substances on a daily basis at that home, and we were very concerned,” Alisa Zoccoli said. “We were telling them that we were afraid he was not supervised enough and that he was going to relapse, and he was on medication-assisted treatment for opioids in order to prevent him from having the desire to use.”
Alisa Zoccoli said after James Zoccoli was taken to the hospital after being found in a homeless encampment, he wasn’t identified until one of the nurses saw his missing persons bulletin and reached out to the family’s private investigator.
“She looked all over databases looking for missing Black boys and she finally came across a picture of our James,” Zoccoli said. “This nurse was amazing [because] she saw our son as a child. She saw him as a person.”
Alisa Zoccoli said her family felt let down by the Arizona Department of Child Safety and the mental health care system.
“DCS failed our family. 1,000% DCS failed our son,” Alisa Zoccoli said. “1,000% DCS and our mental health care system are responsible for my son's death.”
Moving forward, Zoccoli said her family was going to cope with the grief of losing their sons and work to advocate for other families by drafting a bill that would aim to establish oversight for DCS.
12News reached out to DCS about Zoccoli’s claims and a spokesperson said they were not allowed to comment due to confidentiality laws.
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