DETROIT – Tateona Williams, 29, the mother of the two kids who died inside their van in a Detroit casino garage, sat down with Local 4 to speak on what had occurred inside the structure the night before their untimely passing.
The incident occurred on Monday (Feb. 10) inside the Hollywood Casino in Detroit.
According to police, around 1 p.m., Williams noticed that her 9-year-old son was not breathing.
Williams called a friend, who took the child and her to Children’s Hospital, according to police.
While those three were at the hospital, the children’s godmother called and said another one of the kids, a 2-year-old girl, had also stopped breathing, police said.
The friend returned to the van, and the 2-year-old girl was also taken to the hospital.
Officials said both children were pronounced dead at the hospital. It is believed they froze to death.
“I feel sad, very sad, especially as a father,” Detroit police Captain Nathan Duda said. “I just can’t imagine what the family is feeling. I wish it hadn’t happened.”
Initially, officials reported that Williams had five children, but she told us she only had four.
“I have four children. One son and three girls. Now I have two girls,” said Williams.
Circumstances surrounding deaths
Investigators believe Williams drove their van into the parking structure around 1 a.m. and parked on the ninth floor.
At some point between 1 a.m. and noon, the van’s battery had died as temperatures dropped into the teens.
Williams said she called the children’s godmother because she needed a boost, which she received.
“I needed a boost. So they helped me with a boost, but it wouldn’t start, so I’m like, ‘Maybe it ran out of gas. How? I don’t know because I had a nice amount of gas in my car,” Williams said.
Williams continued:
“I think when we kept it on, we might have fell asleep. Then, no, I don’t know. My baby. Nobody can understand how this feels. You know, everybody paints their own picture about me when I know everybody around me knows, okay, the kids, my last I didn’t have anything, but they had everything. I don’t have Expletive. They have everything. I got these shoes from the police officer, like, what do you want.”
Police said they think the family was living in the van and called the two deaths “preventable.”
“I know that they had an address on the east side in an apartment complex, but her, the mother, and the other family member that ended up conveying the children -- they said that they were unsheltered,” Duda said. “They didn’t have a residence to go to.”
Williams said she thought she was doing what was best for her family.
“I lay them down like I do every day for school. It’s not one day they don’t wake up one day I’m having a problem with getting them up. It was about 10 something. I don’t know what time it was. I’m waking my son up. I’m just tapping like, ‘Please get up.’ He wouldn’t move. So I cried to my brother. I said, ‘Please, wake up.’ He wouldn’t move. So I’m breathing on him. I’m like, please wake up.”
Williams continued:
“I turn him around; I see green stuff or brown stuff foaming out his mouth; right then and there, I knew either he had a seizure or he was having one. In my mind, that’s what I thought. I instantly was giving him CPR. When I see that wasn’t working, I threw in my nieces and nephew’s grandmother’s car and rushed him to the hospital.”
Williams said she works in the medical field and knew it was a seizure when she saw him in that state.
She said her son had severe asthma, but he had never had a seizure. She said she was trying everything to wake him up because he was a light sleeper.
Police initially reported that it was the children’s grandmother who transported them to the hospital.
Williams said the woman was her brother’s kids' grandmother, so the woman was like a godmother/grandmother to her children.
“I’m yelling out the window, stop, stop, everybody, please, stop. I’m taking my son to the hospital. Please. I get to the hospital. I’m telling valet to give me some help. He’s not breathing. Valet was acting like they didn’t know what I was talking about. So I got out of the car and ran in there,” Williams said.
Williams continued:
“I said, ‘Please help. He’s not breathing. Please, somebody, come on.‘” Instantly, as soon as they got to the car, they didn’t even have to touch him, and they called ‘Cold blue’ and asked for a stretcher, and they said, He’s not breathing. He don’t have a pulse.”
Williams was in disbelief as she said she realized that her 9-year-old son had died in front of her.
“My son died right before my face. He probably was already gone, but he died right there to me. And I didn’t even know that my 2-year-old was coming,” Williams said.
Williams said she didn’t know anything was wrong with the baby girl as she thought she had just lost her son.
It was at that time when it was her mother who rushed the 2-year-old to the hospital.
Williams said she was told that all of her children were arriving at the hospital.
“They came to me and said, ‘Your other babies, they’re here, but you need to stand right here,’ because I have a problem with anxiety.
I’ll go see my other baby. She’s not breathing. They let me hold her to her last breath, the last birth she had. They said it was nothing they could do. But I called everybody. I called out of state.
I called different cities. I called Detroit. I got on Cam (Detroit). I been on a Cam for a long time. Nobody, every time I called, it says no shelter, no bed. I thought I was doing the right thing. I tried to keep them warm at night. That’s it.”
Tateona Williams
Williams called for help in November
Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan said that they are investigating the circumstances surrounding the situation.
The family had also reached out for help in the summer of 2024 and the previous year.
When they called on Nov. 25, they said they had been living with a family and couldn’t keep living with them, so they needed somewhere to go.
“I was just trying to keep them warm. Nobody helped me. It took me to lose two of my kids to get this help. I don’t feel good about it. It’s just that I want them back, and I know I can’t get them back, but I asked,” Williams said.
According to Duggan, no resolution was reached throughout the conversation with the call taker. The family lived in the vehicle for the last two to three months.
When a situation is deemed an emergency, they’ll send an outreach worker to the site, but for whatever reason, this situation hadn’t been deemed as an emergency at the time.
Duggan says the mother never called back after that, and the homeless services staff never followed up with the family.
“Everybody knew my situation. Their dad, their family, everybody knew I kept asking, ‘Can you get them? Can you get them a week? Can you get them this day? Can you get him the weekend?’ “He would say no because he lives with his girlfriend, and they live with his girlfriend’s mom, and then they work. So he says he can’t get them. Everybody worked there,” Williams said while crying.
Duggan wants an extensive review of homeless services
Due to the heartbreaking situation, Duggan called for a review of the city’s homeless services to determine what needs to be done to prevent this from happening again.
“Are we doing everything to make sure that people in this city know how to access this critical care,” Duggan said.
He said there were shelter beds available not far from where the family was while they were at the garage, and just three weeks after that call, the city opened a family drop-in center on Dec. 16.
“Everybody knew my situation. Now. Everybody wants to come out of the woodwork and help. Where was you at before I lost my two kids,” Williams asked. “I lay them down intentionally all the time at night, kissing them. I rocked my 2-year-old to sleep because she don’t sleep with nobody but me, because she don’t like to; it just so happened, I lay her down because I thought she was cold.”
Williams said she and her children had been living in their van for about three months because her niece and nephew’s grandmother’s husband said he didn’t want a lot of kids in his house.
She said that he put them out because they already had five kids of their own living with them inside the home and that her four kids were too much.
Williams said she was told that they made her and her four children leave.
“It was unfortunate. It wasn’t supposed to be them. I begged for help. I called Minnesota, I called Ohio, I called everywhere, even places people told me to call; I called and kept calling Cam (Detroit), but nobody would help. It takes me to lose two kids to get help. What’s the point now? I want my kids, not the help,” Williams said.
Williams says the system failed her and her family, including Detroit, as she says the city doesn’t have help for anyone.
She said the city doesn’t tell people about private matters or anything as simple as if beds are available.
“You call and ask for help. They say they don’t have nothing available, or they tell you they don’t have family beds available. Now that my two kids are dead, oh, all of a sudden, you got beds available,” Williams said.
Williams said she’s been searching for help for a very long time, including Cam Detroit.
She said the reason why she was in the structure was because she had no other options.
Williams said the children had everything from name-brand clothes to shoes and coats. They also had phones and tablets, but the only thing they lacked was a place to live.
The only thing I didn’t have was a house. And I tried to get a house. I tried to ask for help to get a house, at least put me in a shelter. I didn’t really care where I went. I tried to get help. Now, y’all want to help me," Williams said.
She said the city doesn’t care about anybody, especially when they see they’re struggling and down. Especially people in need.
“They (Detroit) don’t because they could have helped me before I lost my two kids. And then everybody want to get on social media and say, ‘Oh, it was 900 beds available,’ but where was it when I needed help, when I was calling, I kept getting, ‘Oh, it’s no help. It’s no beds. There’s no family bids.’ Yeah, now my two kids are dead. Now everybody got a bed. It don’t work like that.”
Tateona Williams
Duggan said shelter beds were available not far from where Williams and her four children were while they were at the garage.
He said Detroit opened a family drop-in center on Dec. 16 as well.
Since December 2023, Detroit has made 400 more shelter beds and more than 100 drop-in beds available, but Duggan said the city needs to improve its communication of this information to those who need it.
Despite there being extensive media coverage about it, Duggan said they need to find a way to get this information to people experiencing homelessness who may not have easy access to television or social media.
He said he’s called for a complete review of the call center and housing specialists over the next two weeks so they can establish a new plan for addressing situations like this.
Duggan said he also already put a new policy in place and said that anytime minors are involved and experiencing homelessness, an outreach worker must automatically do a site visit to identify the situation and resolve it.
Willams said she wants people to know that during your time of need, the city of Detroit doesn’t help you. You have to look for help by yourself.
“I want people to know that if you can’t get help from the city. Find somebody you can get help from. You have to look yourself. You cannot depend on Detroit,” Williams said.
Williams continued:
“You can’t they’re going to act like they don’t have beds. They’re going to say they don’t have beds. And then as soon as something like this happend, me losing two kids, all of a sudden they have beds. It don’t go like that. Go to somebody you know that’s going to help you, because, in reality, this city, don’t get our back.”
Resources
If you ever find yourself without shelter during cold temperatures, you can call the Detroit Housing Assistance Hotline at 866-313-2520.
If you need help after 6 p.m., Duggan said that the best option is for someone to go to their police precinct for help.
A list of warming centers available in Detroit can be found on the city’s website.
