August 10, 2025
The family is suing the police department for wrongful death, negligence, emotional distress, and conscious pain and suffering experienced by Montrell Williams prior to his death.
The mother and grandmother of Montrell Williams, the two-year-old toddler whose body was discovered in the Bronx River by New York Police Department officers on June 11, filed a $60 million lawsuit against the NYPD on August 7. The following day, during a press conference, they accused the police of lacking urgency in their search efforts after Montrell went missing on Mother’s Day.
According to Gothamist, Ciera Carroll, the boy’s 17-year-old mother, said in a news conference outside of the NYPD’s 40th Precinct that after she informed them that the father of the child, and the primary suspect in his murder, 20-year-old Arius Williams, had a warrant for his arrest, the NYPD reportedly told her “So what,” in response.
According to CBS News, Williams, who entered a not guilty plea on the charges, is currently charged with murder and manslaughter and is being held without bail.
Rev. Kevin McCall, the spokesperson for the family, said that police were aware of domestic violence in the home, and even knowing that history, a family court still chose to allow Williams to have some kind of custody arrangement with the child.
The NYPD “knew that there was a history of domestic violence within the home, that within the home they knew that the father, the mother, the son, whether it was mental abuse or whether it was physical abuse, they knew that because of the history,” McCall told CBS News.
He also told Pix 11 in a separate statement, “Two-year-old Montrell Williams should be here today if it wasn’t for the NYPD being neglectful in finding him. No amount of money will bring him back, however, the NYPD has to be held responsible.”
“I want the NYPD to know what they did. They told me not to follow him and to go to the police to file a complaint,” Carroll said. “I told the police that he had a warrant, they said, ‘So what?’”
According to her mother, 35-year-old Octavia Roane, the police hung up in her daughter’s face after they said “‘So what’.”
“She’s very hurt right now,” Roane said. “The way the police responded, the way they acted towards us, no care in the world.”
In addition to the mother and daughter’s assertions that they called the police multiple times before the police said that they declared the child missing, the toddler’s other set of grandparents said during their son’s arraignment that they filed multiple missing persons reports and officers took longer than a month to officially launch a search after initially referring them to family court.
“They put them on notice that this child is in danger,” Shiraz Khan, a lawyer representing Carroll and Roane in their lawsuit against New York City said. “No Amber alert was issued at all. And, while this child’s life was hanging in the balance, they were pushed to the side.”
According to the complaint filed with the city’s Comptroller’s Office, ”NYPD officers misclassified the call as a custody dispute, failed to initiate a missing child investigation, failed to issue an Amber Alert, and took no immediate steps to locate or safeguard Montrell.”
Per the claim, the family is suing the police department for wrongful death, negligence, emotional distress, and conscious pain and suffering experienced by Montrell Williams prior to his death, which they allege occurred at the hands of his father.
Although NYPD Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch asserted that the department is currently investigating how the investigation was handled, a statement from the NYPD’s is sticking to the story that a missing persons claim wasn’t filed until May 11 was released on Aug. 8.
“We will review the lawsuit if and when it is filed. Montrell Williams was murdered on May 10th. The initial complaint was not reported to the NYPD until May 11th,” the department stated.
The NYPD also released a statement previously, asserting their desire to pursue justice for the murder of the two-year-old.
“The murder of Montrell Williams is an absolute tragedy, and the NYPD extends our deepest condolences to his family. Our detectives are always committed to conducting complete and thorough investigations, and the arrest of Arius Williams is the first step in the pursuit of justice for Montrell’s death,” the NYPD stated on Aug. 4.
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