In the middle of the night on Dec. 5, a woman in a Brooklyn apartment heard troubling sounds a few doors away: a boy wailing, a man shouting, women screaming and what seemed to be a hand striking bare skin.
She texted 911. “They are beating a child,” she wrote to the dispatcher. “You can hear the hits down the hall.”
Two hours later, two officers arrived at the building, on Flatbush Avenue in the Midwood neighborhood. The officers’ visit was captured on footage recorded by their body-worn cameras, which three senior law enforcement officials described to The New York Times.
The officers knocked on the door of the apartment where the commotion had been reported. A woman answered. They did not ask for her name.
The woman said there were two children in the apartment and that both were asleep. After several minutes of questioning, the officers decided the case was unfounded and left. They never saw 3-year-old Kyng Davis.
Three months later, on March 9, Kyng’s mother, Sunshyne Davis, 24, and her boyfriend, Robert White, brought him to a hospital in Brooklyn, where he was pronounced dead. Soon after, they abandoned his body.
No charges have been filed in the boy’s death. Mr. White, 38, was arrested and charged with hitting the child in a separate assault that a relative reported only after Kyng died.
The messages to 911 on Dec. 5 and other allegations of abuse indicate that there were several missed chances to intervene, according to information from internal police reports; interviews with neighbors, a family member and two of the senior law enforcement officials with knowledge of the matter; the charges against Mr. White; and the 911 messages obtained by The Times.
In a statement, the Police Department said, “The officers’ response on December 5 is under review, and they have been placed on modified assignment.”
“The death of Kyng Davis was an absolute tragedy,” the statement said. “No child should ever be subjected to such horrific treatment.”
The woman who messaged 911 did not give a name to the police, and an anonymous report is not sufficient probable cause for officers to enter an apartment.
Brooklyn Defender Services, the agency that is representing Mr. White, who is not the boy’s father, declined to comment on the charges or any other matter related to Kyng. Ms. Davis was also questioned by the police after her son died, but has not been charged and has no criminal history in New York. She did not respond to several requests for comment.
There were previous indications that Kyng might have been in danger. The city’s Administration for Children’s Services already had a case file on the Davis family, according to an official who was not authorized to speak about the report. Its exact nature is unclear.
Before Mr. White met Ms. Davis, he had been arrested at least 20 times in New York City in incidents dating back nearly two decades, according to police records.
Among the most concerning of those took place in 2017 at a hotel on Madison Avenue near East 27th Street. He was arrested and charged with punching his then-wife in the eye. In 2019, Mr. White was arrested again and charged with punching a friend. Those cases were sealed, so their outcomes were unclear.
That same year, Mr. White was living with an uncle on Forester Avenue in Brooklyn. Sherry Jefferson, 63, who lives on the block, recalled Mr. White’s run-ins with the law. “Robert would come live here when he got in trouble,” she said.
Around the same time, Ms. Davis was living in the Bronx, pregnant with Kyng. After her son was born on June 21, 2021, Ms. Davis began to share photographs of him on social media. In one, Kyng looks straight into the camera as his mother leans into the frame. In another, he is sitting on the floor dressed in red and blue footed pajamas decorated with characters from the children’s show “Paw Patrol.”
In a post on Feb. 9, 2022, after her uncle died, Ms. Davis made him a promise: “Watch over us I’m going to make you proud of me and be the best mother I can be.”
After Ms. Davis met Mr. White, the couple and Kyng began staying with a woman in the third-floor apartment on Flatbush Avenue, according to public records, neighbors and the building superintendent.
Problems emerged soon after. Santiago Vargas, the superintendent, said that when he had been inside their apartment, there was an overwhelming odor of dog urine and feces.
Mr. Vargas said the police and social workers had been to the home several times after complaints that one of the tenants in the apartment was kicking her neighbors’ doors. (The Police Department said that, apart from the call on Dec. 5, they had not received other reports about Kyng from the building.)
On one occasion, when social service workers stopped by, Mr. Vargas did not see them go upstairs to inspect the apartment. Instead, he said, they talked in the building lobby with a woman who lived in the apartment. The woman’s identity and the nature of their visit were unclear.
When Mr. Vargas heard about Kyng’s death, he said, he did not have “a polite reaction.”
“As many times as these police officers came to this unit to deal with this lady, something could have been done about that a long time ago,” he said.
On Dec. 17, almost two weeks after the noise in the apartment prompted the neighbor to contact the police, an assistant property manager emailed residents regarding the family.
“We are reaching out regarding the tenant in unit 302,” the email said. “Please do not knock on her door or attempt to interact with her under any circumstances. If you happen to experience any interaction with this tenant, please notify management immediately by both email and phone with details so we can address the situation appropriately.”
“The tenant has been instructed not to interact with any other residents or approach your doors,” the email continued. “If this does occur, please let us know right away.”
By January, Ms. Davis and Mr. White were homeless and began living in their car with Kyng, according a law enforcement official with knowledge of the matter.
On Feb. 22, they went to visit Mr. White’s cousin Nikita Nash in the East New York neighborhood of Brooklyn. Around 4:30 p.m. Ms. Nash, who was in another room, heard Mr. White “repeatedly strike Kyng Davis to the face so loudly” that she walked over to see what was happening, according to the criminal complaint. When she saw Mr. White continue to hit the boy, she rushed to intervene.
Ms. Nash saw Kyng “holding his face while crying hysterically,” the complaint said.
Two weeks later, around 10:30 a.m. on March 9, Ms. Davis and Mr. White brought Kyng to SUNY’s University Hospital at Downstate in Brooklyn, according to an internal police report. By the time they arrived, the boy already showed signs of rigor mortis, the report said, an indication that he had died hours before.
After Kyng was pronounced dead, the couple jumped into their car and took off down Clarkson Avenue, the report said. An hour later, hospital security officers contacted the Police Department to report the couple. Their license plate, registered in Pennsylvania, did not appear to belong to the car, the report said.
The city medical examiner performed an autopsy, but further testing is underway, according to a spokeswoman for the agency. The results may determine whether Mr. White and Ms. Davis will be charged in his death.
People connected to Ms. Davis and Mr. White on social media, angered by the news of Kyng’s death, called for the couple to turn themselves in. By March 11, detectives had caught up with them, spoken to Ms. Nash about the incident she witnessed and charged Mr. White with assault.
Within days, word of Kyng’s death reached the Bronx. In front of the building on West Farms Road near Rodman Place where Ms. Davis had once lived with her son, a black-and-white photo of Kyng was taped to the wall. Below were six white candles and a tiny plush lamb.
Andy Newman contributed reporting. Alain Delaquérière contributed research.