A child was left with strangers near a popular Tacoma restaurant. The response took hours
The scene was chaotic, and by all indications traumatizing. Ordinary people suddenly found themselves in impossible situations. A young child was in danger.
On a lovely spring evening, it’s fair to assume that no one visiting the 700 block of Pacific Avenue in Tacoma was expecting what would come next. At one of the city’s few active hubs for dining and nightlife, most arrived looking for a good meal and a drink, not an hours-long drama that few will ever forget.
Most important? Nearly all of it was preventable — or it would have been if only the situation triggered the type of emergency response you’d justifiably expect.
As it stands, the harrowing ordeal serves as yet another troubling reminder that our safeguards appear to be failing — and that getting help when you need it is harder than ever.
According to police accounts, 911 calls and Erin Conners Burgfield, the general manager of Wooden City restaurant and bar at 714 Pacific Avenue, here’s what happened:
Shortly before 6 p.m. on May 17, a group of seven women seated on the deck finished their meal at Wooden City and headed toward the door. Gathered outside, several members of the party were approached by a female in a white tank top and gray shorts who, according to the 911 calls that would later be placed, forced her car keys on them and asked them to watch her 3-year-old son playing in her car. The mother appeared disheveled and frantic, they’d tell dispatchers, and insisted she needed to use the restroom at one of the nearby restaurants. Then she disappeared.
Her patrons were confused and shaken, Conners Burgfield told me, but it all happened so fast. As they approached the car they saw a child in diapers but no pants, she explained. They also reported seeing multiple open containers of alcohol, adding to their concern.
Then they waited.
At 6:23 p.m.., according to Tacoma Police spokesperson Wendy Haddow, a 911 call was received.
“She was acting strange,” the caller told South Sound 911 dispatchers of the mother’s behavior, according to recordings obtained by The News Tribune. “She just left. … She left her child.”
In response, the dispatcher assured the caller that help was on its way. But according to Haddow, the agency was consumed with more pressing concerns at the time, and police weren’t dispatched to the scene until 8:50 p.m., more than two hours after the first 911 call was placed. Conners Burgfield said no one arrived until after 9 p.m.
The call initially came in as an “unattended child,” Haddow explained, which, while serious, didn’t suggest the boy was in immediate danger, she said.
“It’s not that they didn’t want to send officers,” Haddow told The News Tribune. “It’s just that all the officers were tied up.”
What happened in the meantime made the situation potentially combustible and dire.
In total, The News Tribune reviewed a dozen calls to 911 dispatchers related to the situation received during the course of the evening and the following day. Several came from the woman who found herself caring for the child, largely from the safety of a bathroom, where she was able to change the boy’s soiled diaper. Making matters even more fraught, at some point the mother returned and later placed several 911 calls herself — as did the boy’s concerned grandmother. When a bewildered bystander who was trying to help called 911 on her behalf, the mother can be heard screaming hysterically in the background.
Meanwhile, in a separate 911 call, a dispatcher suggested to one of the people caring for the child that they weren’t obligated to return the boy if she was concerned for his safety and well-being.
It was guidance the women relied on, Conners Burgfield said, as they struggled to know how to react.
“I think it was really disheartening. It really felt like we were at a loss for what to do,” Conners Burgfield said last week, still reeling from the experience. “I didn’t know how to find help, and it felt like there should have been another option.”
According to Haddow, the mother eventually left the scene in another vehicle. The child was transported to Mary Bridge Hospital, and at roughly 11 p.m., a Child Protective Services case worker took the boy into custody.
On Friday, Jason Wettstein, a spokesperson for the state Department of Children, Youth and Families, told The News Tribune that the child welfare records are confidential under state law. No update was available.
Attempts to reach the child’s mother, who eventually identified herself to 911 dispatchers, were unsuccessful.
In an emotional 911 call placed the following day, the woman was still trying to track down her son. The News Tribune is withholding the mother’s name since no charges have been filed and details of the situation remain murky.
“My son was taken yesterday and I was told he’s in CPS,” the mother, now calmed, tells a dispatcher. “I just need to know how to go about finding out where he’s at, (and) how do I get him back?”
“I have zero information,” the mother later adds, claiming that she’d paid a group of strangers to watch her son. “It’s a really long story.”
In a situation that defies reasonable explanation, that much is certain:
It is a very long story, and also one that should trigger alarms for all of us.
As Conners Burgfield told me last week, this isn’t simply about a Tacoma police force that’s overwhelmed and understaffed. It’s not just an isolated story of despair and desperation, either. She’s not mad at the police, and without knowing more about what the child’s mother is going through, she’s hesitant to cast absolute judgment. In some ways, she was failed too.
Besides, it’s bigger than all that, Conners Burgfield suggested.
What happened just outside her Tacoma restaurant last month — and the untold toll it will take on a little boy she’s unlikely to meet again — is an indication of how broken we are, as a society.
It was also a terrifying experience, and one she’ll hold onto forever, she said.
Mostly, she can’t stop thinking about the kid.
“I was saddened, and felt let down by the whole thing,” Conners Burgfield said.
“We were at a loss. We didn’t have any direction. … And it could have happened to anybody.”
This story was originally published June 18, 2023 at 5:00 AM.
