This is one of the 88 stories of children dying at the hands of their caregivers reported in the recent Safe Passage For Children investigation of child death in Minnesota. The report suggests why this tragedy is happening in our state and how we can make life safer for at risk children (in the read more at the end of the article). Please share this with your contacts and State Representative.
Tayvion Davis, Hennepin County
The case of Tayvion Davis exemplifies chronic multitype maltreatment and how the child welfare system responded to it. In 2006, prior to his birth, Tayvion’s mother and two other adult relatives held down and beat a child who was later one of Tayvion’s siblings. The mother was convicted of malicious
punishment of a child. From this time until Tayvion’s death in 2018 at age eight, at least ten known subsequent child protection reports were made alleging physical abuse, sexual abuse and neglect.
The family’s child protection history included an incident in 2015 in which Tayvion and two of his siblings were involved in a car accident. The mother refused treatment for the children and removed them from the hospital against medical advice.
The county responded by assigning the case to Family Assessment. Court records also document that over these years the children were hit on the hands with a hammer, beaten with a metal rod, whipped with a belt, burned with boiling water or chemicals, threatened with death if they talked about the abuse, deprived of food and sleep as punishments, and were continuously exposed to household hazards including accessible guns.
As with the case of Sophia O’Neill, the question arises whether some medical providers other than the specialist noted below may have noticed injuries in these children over this lengthy period of time and should have reported them, however there is no information to clarify this in the court records.
During 2015 there were four separate allegations of sexual abuse against Tayvion and/or his siblings with four separate perpetrators in a span of nine months, including a juvenile relative, the oldest sibling, a cousin, and an unrelated male.
Maltreatment determinations were made against three of the four perpetrators. The oldest sibling was moved out of home during the investigation, but the court ordered that child to be returned home over the objection of the local department. The father of the children knew about the sexual abuse, and, according to the court record, told the children he would break their arms and legs if they told anyone about it.
Tayvion and his siblings were examined by a physician certified in pediatric child maltreatment, regarding the cases of sexual abuse. It appears that despite the 2015 and 2016 assessments by this specialist the county did not remove the children or take other actions to protect them.
Early in 2018, Tayvion’s mother forced him to spend the night in the garage in below-zero temperatures.
He froze to death on February 1, 2018.
While the proximate cause of Tayvion’s death was freezing, the physician who performed the autopsy noted extensive linear and looped injuries and scars on him, which were present in the December 2015 evaluation, but were more prominent at the time of his death, indicating ongoing physical abuse. It was later confirmed that the mother frequently whipped the children with a belt.
There were also linear scars on Tayvion’s genitals at the time of his death, which were not noted in prior evaluations. These observations suggest that the physical abuse not only continued but perhaps devolved into torture after the child maltreatment specialist documented the earlier injuries.
Tayvion’s siblings were placed on a police hold after the fatality but were returned to their mother’s care several days later for an additional five months, during which time the mother was the subject of several additional CPS reports. It was not until after they were removed that the siblings shared with their foster parents that Tayvion was deliberately locked in the garage.
This ultimately led to murder charges against the mother more than a year and a half after his death. The case of Tayvion Davis illustrates not only chronic multitype abuse, but also a number of the other patterns discovered during this study, including overuse of Family Assessment, returning surviving siblings to a situation where safety concerns have not been addressed, poor oversight of open child protection cases, ignoring evaluations from medical providers, and unrecognized child torture.
SME comments:
While SMEs did not always agree in their assessment of cases, there was a consensus regarding Tayvion that many opportunities were missed to intervene and protect both him and his siblings. Examples of their input are:
“Many professionals charged with protecting children instead exposed them to torture and ongoing misery.” – Medical SME
“It is obvious to me that there were so many opportunities for interventions that could have and should have occurred so many years earlier” – Court officer SME
The children should have been removed from the home. Why was more attention not paid to the significant record and patterns of abuse throughout the entire family unit.
Were background checks done? Was supervised visitation ever a starting place with dad? Who was observing mom with the children? There were no safety nets for these kids… and every time they spoke up, they were returned to harm. – GAL SME
It is nearly impossible that the incidents reported were the only incidents that should have risen to CPS investigations. Based on frequency alone this family should have been given some type of priority status in the CPS and LE system. This is a case in which if the two entities were not working together, they should have been. That information sharing isn’t done regularly. The information flow goes mostly from LE to CPS and almost never in reverse until there is specific investigation. It would be great to get this changed but data privacy laws will not allow that. – Law Enforcement SME
Chronic Multi-Type Maltreatment Recommendations
15. DHS engage an outside expert to determine if more Minnesota families
with child fatalities are known to child protection than nationally and make
appropriate recommendations.
16. DHS reach out to entities involved in Tayvion Davis and similar cases,
including counties, representatives of local law enforcement agencies,
courts, and prosecutors to initiate a review of policies and practices that
enable chronic multitype maltreatment to occur, and make appropriate
changes.
17. The Department work with the CWTA to develop mandatory training for
caseworkers to recognize and respond appropriately to chronic multitype
maltreatment.
ALL ADULTS ARE THE PROTECTORS OF ALL CHILDREN
KARA Public Service Announcement (30 seconds)
KARA Signature Video (4 minute)
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