The State of Washington has agreed to pay $1.5 million to the family of a child who was abused on multiple occasions by his mother’s boyfriend, despite visits from Child Protective Services. CPS was slow to respond to reports of the abuse and did not conduct a thorough investigation, the boy’s attorneys argued.
The case dates back to Oct. 19, 2011, when CPS received a report that a man punched a seven-month-old baby in the face during a dispute with the baby’s mother at their Tacoma home, according to court documents.
CPS allegedly told the caller to contact police, who responded to the home. The officer who visited the home told CPS “that he was very concerned about the welfare of the baby that night,” the boy’s attorneys wrote.
CPS failed to code the investigation as a high-priority, 24-hour investigation, attorneys for the child argued. A social worker who arrived the next day “did little with the baby other than to casually and briefly observe him in a crib. The social worker spent only a short amount of time at the apartment and then walked away, leaving the baby with the swollen face and head alone with the man police suspected to have punched him in the face,” the boy’s attorneys wrote.
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