Relatives of a Bronx toddler who authorities say was killed by his father and who was missing for a month are considering legal action against New York City, accusing officials of mishandling the case, family representatives said Monday.
Outside the 40th Precinct stationhouse in the South Bronx, the Rev. Kevin McCall and other religious leaders criticized the NYPD’s handling of the disappearance of 2-year-old Montrell Williams and said the family is looking for a lawyer to mount a possible lawsuit. Prosecutors allege Montrell's father, 20-year-old Arius Williams, threw the boy into the Bronx River after Montrell was last seen on May 10. Last week, police discovered a body in the East River that officials believe was Montrell. A judge ordered the father held without bail Thursday on murder and manslaughter charges.
“ The police department knew that this was a missing case and they failed the family,” McCall said. He described the desperate lengths Montrell’s 17-year-old mother went to in order to find Montrell after, officials say, Arius Williams failed to return him to her.
“ She was right there at the location at the McDonald's to pick up her son, and she waited and the father never showed up with Montrell,” said McCall, who has been working with the family. “She didn't hear from nobody, so she decided to call 911, and 911 told her that ‘you have to deal with this in court. This is not a police matter. It's a custody-issue matter.’”
The mother hung up in disbelief, and the 911 dispatcher never followed up with her, McCall said. Instead, she used her own resources to try to track down the boy’s father, including calling his family, following him to a Bronx drop-in shelter and eventually locating him in Manhattan, according to the reverend.
In a statement Monday, an NYPD spokesperson said Montrell’s death was “an absolute tragedy” and expressed condolences to his family. The spokesperson added that Arius Williams’ arrest was “the first step” in getting justice for the toddler, and said that the department did not receive the initial complaint about his disappearance until May 11.
Last week, Mayor Eric Adams said city officials would review how police oversaw the case. “This was a troubling series of events based on the actions of the dad in handling the child that we need to find out exactly what happened,” he said.
A spokesperson for the city’s Office of the Chief Medical Examiner on Monday said a DNA test confirmed the recovered body belonged to Montrell, but his cause and manner of death were still being determined.
The NYPD is asking for the public’s help locating 2-year-old Montrell Williams, last seen on May 10 in the Hunts Point section of the Bronx.
On June 8, the mother again confronted Arius Williams in the Bronx, McCall said. According to a criminal complaint from the Bronx district attorney’s office, Williams threatened her with a knife and told her he had thrown Montrell into the river.
Three days later, officials said, they found the boy’s body in the East River, which connects with the Bronx River upstream. They then arrested Arius Williams in the same precinct where Montrell disappeared in Hunts Point.
Arius Williams’ attorney did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Prosecutors said they reviewed surveillance video showing the father throwing his son into the water on May 10, the day Montrell went missing and a day before police said they received the mother's complaint.
Outside the courthouse last Thursday, Arius Williams’ father, Leroy Burton, told Gothamist that Williams had left a Mother’s Day gathering with Montrell in his arms, which alarmed his side of the family as well.
“I know we made a lot of reports, but nothing was done,” Burton said.
McCall alleged police knew about a history of domestic violence between Montrell’s parents but did not treat the boy’s disappearance as an emergency and did not authorize an immediate wellness check for him.
“They dealt with it with a soft spoon,” McCall said. “They didn't provide no resources.”
