Another toddler dead because progressives believe ACS should be abolished

‘I fought for my son. I warned ACS, the courts, NYPD. Everybody. But now y’all can hear me? Now y’all can hear me?” Cyndy Williams asked.

Williams, whose 2-year-old son Maliek succumbed to his injuries at NewYork-Presbyterian on Thursday, says she tried to get the authorities to pay attention to the danger that Maliek’s father, Dayvon Morrison, posed to their child.

According to official reports, the boy suffered “a blown right pupil, fractured pelvis, laceration to the liver, damage to the brain stem, multiple brain bleeds and swelling to the brain.”

Williams, whose 2-year-old son succumbed to his injuries at NewYork-Presbyterian, says she tried to get the authorities to pay attention to the danger that Maliek’s father posed to their child. Famouslycici Instagram

His father is alleged to have beaten him to within an inch of his life a week ago.

“If you’re gonna put me in cuffs, that’s fine,” Morrison allegedly told the responding officers. “I was drunk the other night.”

No word on whether he was drunk during the two days afterward when he failed to provide Maliek any medical attention.

Systemic failures

The city Administration for Children’s Services is not admitting whether they were aware of the risks to the toddler.

“The safety and well-being of New York City children is our top priority,” a spokesperson said before Maliek died. “We are investigating this horrific abuse with the NYPD, and we are hoping the child will make a full recovery.”

There is obviously plenty of failure to go around here, if the NYPD and family courts also knew about the situation.

Dayvon Morrison appears in Queens Court on Wednesday, Feb. 4, 2026. James Messerschmidt for NY Post

Not to mention that the beating occurred inside a city homeless shelter.

Is anyone there paying attention?

Less than a year ago, 4-year-old Aron Sklar died from fentanyl exposure in a family shelter in Brooklyn.

His parents, who each had long criminal and drug abuse histories, were charged; neighbors say the security firm was ignoring clear risks in the facility.

It would hardly be surprising if Maliek’s situation was on the radar of ACS before this tragic incident.

Jess Dannhauser, who began as ACS commissioner in 2021 and submitted his resignation to Mayor Mamdani last month, has presided over an agency that has taken a see-no-evil approach to child welfare.

He has tried to reduce reports of child maltreatment, empowered abusive parents to evade consequences for their actions, and left too many children in unsafe homes with sometimes fatal consequences.

Dannhauser’s tenure has been guided by the idea that the most important thing in child welfare is “equity.”

As one ACS worker told me, the agency has “drunk the Kool-Aid” of woke politics around race and class.

Dannhauser supported the state Legislature’s recent bill to ban anonymous reporting of abuse and neglect, which was sold to the public as a way to prevent oversurveillance of poor and black families.

But anonymous reporting is the way we learned about Lissette Soto Domenech starving her 14-year-old sons last month.

And it’s the way we learned about 11-year-old Jacob Pritchett, the nonverbal autistic child who has been missing for months, as his mother continues to claim she is Jesus Christ and has never had a child.

Not a resource issue

Dannhauser also discouraged reporting by New York City’s public-school teachers.

In 2023, he explained that rather than reporting suspected cases of abuse to ACS, teachers should actually remain quiet in instances where a family “just needs help, such as access to child care assistance, mental health counseling or concrete resources.”

And he touted reductions in reports from teachers as a significant accomplishment.

It was never clear how teachers were supposed to distinguish between parents who just need “concrete” resources and those who are suffering from substance abuse or mental illness.

When children are chronically absent, not bathed, lack appropriate clothing or are malnourished, there’s a good chance something is going wrong in the home.

Four-year-old Jahmeik Modlin’s family didn’t need food stamps or a housing allowance or better access to laundry facilities; he starved to death in a home (known to ACS) where the refrigerator was fully stocked but facing the wall so he and his three siblings could not access it.

It is ACS’s job to take in all the information and then determine how to proceed, not to suppress reports.

Dannhauser has also bragged about the CARES program, which funnels families out of “investigations” and into more supportive services.

Criminal activity (that doesn’t directly involve the children) and drug abuse are no longer automatically grounds for investigation.

The administration has defended its safety record, claiming that maltreatment fatalities ACS was aware of are actually declining.

But as a colleague and I noted in response to the data provided by the agency, the number of fatalities reviewed by ACS has dropped significantly.

“If fewer deaths get reviewed, it’s hardly surprising that fewer will be linked to ACS involvement,” we wrote.

Eying ‘abolitionist’

Dannhauser did not say he is resigning because of any anticipated policy disagreements with the Mamdani administration.

Indeed, the new mayor may well appoint a commissioner even less concerned with safety.

A source told me that City Hall is having trouble finding anyone for the role, and is considering at least one “abolitionist” (someone who wants to get rid of the child welfare system altogether) for the job.

Which would be in line with Mamdani’s record in Albany.

He co-sponsored the anonymous reporting legislation, as well as legislation that would have banned routine drug screens of pregnant and postpartum mothers, as well as newborns, without written and oral consent from the parents.

Indeed, the mayor’s attitudes toward drug use are among the most worrying signs that ACS is about to go off the deep end.

Up to 90% of families involved in the child welfare system nationwide are suffering from a substance use disorder.

If this administration treats drug use as just a choice that adults can make — even if it results in them freezing to death on the streets — then how will Mamdani deal with the drug-addled parents of young children?

How will he keep New York’s most vulnerable citizens safe?

Naomi Schaefer Riley is a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.