It’s been almost eight months since Gavin Peterson died of organ failure due to severe malnourishment. The police investigation found that the 12-year-old had been abused for years, locked in a room without bedding or blankets, beaten and starved, while adults in the home monitored him with multiple cameras.
Gavin had been on the radar of Utah’s Department of Children and Family Services since 2014, but over and over the agency either failed to investigate allegations of abuse or neglect, or closed investigations prematurely. Public outrage in the wake of Gavin’s death was strong — there were protests and legislative hearings, and legislators took up a bill that would establish a mandatory minimum sentence for people convicted of child torture.
But nothing has been done to address the systemic problems that led to this tragedy. Instead, Utah’s lawmakers seem poised to ... lower the cost of lunch in public schools.
We don’t know everything about the case, but at the website Lives Cut Short (a joint project of the American Enterprise Institute and the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill), my colleagues and I have pieced together a timeline from public records and media reports.
Two-year-old Gavin was removed from his mother’s custody in 2014 or 2015 after he was found wandering alone outside. His mother pleaded guilty to exposing her children to illegal drugs or drug paraphernalia, and Gavin went to live with his father, Shane Peterson. His older sister reported to their mother that when she lived with Shane and his wife, she was beaten, tied to the bed and barely fed. Her father shaved her head after she attempted to comb her hair without permission.
The older sister went to live with the mother, but Gavin remained with his father, stepmother and older brother. The authorities received multiple calls over many years concerning Gavin’s welfare. Cafeteria workers found him eating out of the trash and began paying for his lunch. His stepmother scolded them and told them to stop. Other school officials made calls about a broken tooth and fingers that were swollen and infected. Shortly thereafter, Gavin was removed from school by his parents with no explanation. A year later he died in the emergency room.
There are a number of steps that Utah legislators could take in response to what appears to be a total systemic failure. They could demand greater transparency around such incidents, to start. There are so many questions about why the DFCS staff acted in the way that it did. Some suggest it was a shortage of workers; others say there were inadequate resources. But until we get the full reports explaining DCFS’ actions, it’s impossible to say.
The second thing the Legislature could do is to institute some guardrails around schooling. There are many great reasons to homeschool, and homeschooling has been a boon to millions of families around the country. But a family that abruptly pulls children out of school after multiple credible allegations of abuse or neglect should raise suspicions. Utah has no rules around these circumstances, nothing suggesting that child protection might even follow up on a family with a history of maltreatment once the child is effectively hidden from public view. And to make matters worse, Utah legislators are now proposing to remove a rule requiring parents who want to homeschool to sign an affidavit saying they have never been convicted of child abuse.
But progress on these issues has stalled, according to recent reports. One measure, House Bill 83, would empower police or child protective services to enter a home if a child is believed to be in danger. But the bill hasn’t made it out of committee yet. Instead, it seems, lawmakers have turned their attention to making meals more affordable in school. Bizarrely, the legislator who sponsored this legislation says that it was Gavin’s case that made it possible. “It shakes you to your core when you read a story about a young person like Gavin Peterson starving to death,” Rep. Tyler Clancy said, per KUTV.
This is nonsense. Gavin didn’t die because his family couldn’t afford meals. He was purposefully starved to death by a family that had enough resources. His father, brother and stepmother have all been charged with homicide. There is not a lot of room for nuance here.
In a similar case in New York last fall, 4-year-old Jah’Meik Modlin died at a hospital of malnutrition after his parents kept the refrigerator turned facing the wall so that he and his three siblings could not access any of the family’s food. Local news outlets ran articles that included links to local resources like soup kitchens. But Jah’Meik didn’t starve because his family didn’t know where to find food or couldn’t afford it. He died because his parents intentionally starved him.
It can be hard for anyone to spend time with the details of these tragedies. But protecting children from being killed by their guardians is one of the most fundamental roles of government — even small government. Let Gavin’s death mean that other children don’t suffer the same fate.