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A week before a 3-year-old fell from an eighth-floor window of an Independence apartment building on Monday, police had visited his home, contacted his caregivers and filed a report with Child Protective Services, according to a police report.
But despite the family being reported to the Missouri Department of Social Services, the family asking Independence Towers building management multiple times to repair the broken window, and city officials being made aware of the poor condition of the building, nothing appears to have been done to ensure the boy’s safety.
The referral to social services came on July 22 when another child from the home, a 5-year-old, was found walking alone a short distance from the apartments around 7 a.m.
When asked whether the Department of Social Services (DSS) was investigating the death at Independence Towers and whether the agency had received any calls to its helpline about the family, a spokesperson declined to comment specifically on those questions.
“The Director of the Department of Social Services has the authority to release information and findings about cases that have resulted in a fatality or near-fatality of a child,” Baylee Watts of DSS said in an email. “The Director may consider whether it is appropriate to release information or findings about the case after the investigation is complete and the Department has had an opportunity to consider the impact of the release of information on other children within the immediate family, the criminal investigation, or any legal proceedings arising from the case in the manner required by law.”
It is unclear whether police or DSS investigated the family further or had any further contact with them after the July 22 incident. Officer Kelley Rupert, a spokesperson for the Independence Police Department, did not respond to a request for information about that contact Friday afternoon.
Following the 3-year-old’s death, the child’s father and the man’s girlfriend were each charged Wednesday with one count of endangering the welfare of a child in the first degree. The other children in the home were placed in state custody, according to court documents.
Both Moses Bass, 30, and Destiny Randle, 28, made initial appearances in Jackson County District Court on Wednesday and are scheduled for bail review hearings on Aug. 7. Both remain in the Jackson County Jail on $100,000 bail.
Child found missing a week earlier
According to a police report about the July 22 incident, released to The Star by Independence police on Friday, the 5-year-old child was found at a gas station just north of the apartments after police received a report of a missing child near Jennings Road and U.S. Highway 24.
A gas station employee told an officer that he gave the child some food because he said he was hungry. The boy was carrying a Nintendo Switch at the time, was shirtless, and was wearing shorts and flip-flops.
The boy indicated he lived in the direction of the Independence Towers apartment building, but the officer determined that “he had no idea where he lived or maybe just didn’t want to tell me.” The officer took the child back to the police station and the department posted a photo of the boy on social media in an effort to reunite the child with his family.
“We need your help this morning~Do you recognize this child?” the department wrote. “We were called to check on this child who appeared to be walking alone near 24 Highway and Jennings this morning around 7:00 a.m.”
The officer found a profile on the Switch labeled “Moses” and saw that the device had previously connected to a network called “BassFamily.” Police discovered that Bass had utilities signed up in his name at an apartment in Independence Towers — the same apartment where the 3-year-old would fall a week later.
The police knocked on the apartment door and Randle answered it.
“I asked her, ‘Is this your child?’ and pointed to (the child), she said no at first and started saying her children were inside,” the officer wrote in a report. “Destiny then looked outside in disbelief.”
She then called Bass, who said the child had gotten into trouble the day before.
“I offered (Bass) resources and they denied wanting services,” the officer wrote. “(The child) went back with the family.”
The officer wrote that the state Social Services Department had been notified of the incident.
Broken window responsible for death
After the 3-year-old girl died a week later, Randle told police she had tried to get the window repaired by the building manager for months before the fatal fall.
“Randle stated that she has attempted to have building management repair the window on several occasions and stated that the window has been in that condition since they moved in approximately (a) year ago,” Independence Police Detective Kurt Jarnagin wrote in charging documents.
After his arrest, Bass allegedly told police in a formal interview that he had known the window posed a safety risk since June 2023, and that the children had been able to bypass the locks and get out of the window since December. He allegedly said he knew one of the children was able to remove the pole they were using to secure the window because neighbors told them the children were throwing toys out the window.
Randle reportedly told police after her arrest that she was “concerned from day one that one of her children would fall out of a window.”
The problems are the result of a series of issues that have plagued the Independence Towers apartment building for years, with tenants saying their requests for help in resolving a series of complaints have been ignored.
Tenants have complained publicly for months about living among rats, mice, cockroaches and bedbugs. In March, The Star reported that residents went without hot water for two weeks. There is no heat in the winter — and no air conditioning in the summer, forcing several tenants to tell The Star that they have to keep their windows open as a result.
Residents enlisted the help of KC Tenants, a local tenants union, and a court ordered changes in the building’s management and ownership.
But City of Independence officials say their hands are tied because, they say, no formal complaints have been filed. Tom Scannell, director of Community Development, said the city cannot take action unless formal complaints are filed with the city.
“We can only enforce the rules, regulations and processes that we have in place. If there are tenants who want to file a complaint about items that are not in order in their unit, they can contact city staff,” Scannell told The Star in a phone interview. “Once we have the complaint form, the city can step in and follow the process to make sure those units are safe and livable.”
And while window locks and opening restrictions were added to the Independence Building Code about 20 years ago, Scannell said those codes don’t apply to older buildings like Independence Towers. Scannell said city code doesn’t allow the city to enforce the change retroactively for older buildings.
The 3-year-old who died Monday has not yet been named by officials, but a family member has identified the child by his first name, Titus. When asked when the child’s name would be released, Rupert, of the Independence Police Department, told The Star in an email, “This is an ongoing investigation so I cannot provide a time frame for that.”
Court documents describe the condition of the family’s apartment: A detective wrote that there was trash everywhere, that the children’s beds were dirty and had no sheets, and that old, soiled diapers were found in a room. Child safety covers were found on the doorknobs in the children’s bedroom, inside the front door, and outside the bathroom.
One of the children in the apartment said he was in the bedroom with the door closed when the 3-year-old fell out of the bedroom window and died.
The child also said he had marks on his arms and legs from Randle and Bass allegedly hurting him with an object described by the detective as a “black whip or belt-like object.”
