A toddler is dead after being found battered and bruised inside a homeless shelter in Elmhurst Sunday (Photo: Google Maps)
Nov. 16, 2022 By Michael Dorgan
A toddler is dead after being found battered and bruised inside a homeless shelter in Elmhurst Sunday — and police are investigating the incident as a homicide.
The victim, a 3-year-old boy named Shaquan Butler, was found at around 7:40 p.m. by police inside the Boulevard Family Residence — a family homeless shelter located at 79-00 Queens Boulevard. The child’s parents called 911, police said.
Butler was unconscious and unresponsive with bruises throughout his body that were in different stages of healing, according to the NYPD.
The child had a faint pulse when emergency services arrived on the scene and he was then transported by EMS to NYC Health & Hospital/Elmhurst but could not be saved, police said.
The toddler was also found to have had a collapsed lung, police said.
The victim’s mother told police that the child began to act strangely and began choking shortly before they called 911, the NYPD said.
He then ran into a pillar inside the shelter, fell back and struck his head on the floor, the boy’s mother told police.
However, police say that story was inconsistent with his injuries and the NYPD has now launched a homicide investigation.
The toddler’s parents have been questioned by police, but no arrests have been made in relation to the incident, the NYPD said.
The shelter previously operated as the Pan American Hotel.
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28 Comments
This is awful
I’d there no supervision in these shelters ???!
Any comment from Won, Caban or AOC? No candle light vigil?
No because they hate children
To them this child was an after birth abortion
Of course not since socialists hate kids
They enjoy late term abortions.
OOOF am I glad I am leaving. Imagine living in a nice middle to upper class neighborhood that you worked hard to afford only to see the city force it full of dregs who don’t have their act together? F that.
Hopefully tragedies like this will be prevented by offering more housing opportunities to homeless and poor New Yorkers. “New York City is betting that a slate of changes to housing policy announced Monday will help struggling New Yorkers afford rent in one of the most expensive cities in the world. Mayor Eric Adams said the city would aim to expand eligibility and use of a rental-assistance program known as the City Family Homelessness and Eviction Prevention Supplement, including by paying landlords in expensive neighborhoods who rent to voucher-holders a bonus of about one month’s rent. Adams said at a briefing on Monday that more than half of New York’s federal housing vouchers for the poor are used in just 10% of the city’s neighborhoods. “We have to change that,” he said of the city initiative.”
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-11-14/nyc-wants-to-pay-landlords-in-rich-areas-to-accept-rent-vouchers?leadSource=uverify%20wall
The stress and fear involved with being homeless and living in a shelter has devastating consequences. We need more affordable housing in Qns.
Would you like to live next door to the couple with over 30 arrests between them? There were already 2 kids removed from custody.
Well sorry. If you can’t afford to keep your body and soul together then you should not be allowed to have another body and soul to be forced to keep together.
We still are not addressing mental health. We need to face facts, some people should not be allowed on the streets.
Woah! take the money and run!
What is the family’s zip code of origin ? DeBlasio said that hotel was to be used for all the people in the system from the zip codes surrounding the hotel.
What kind of people beat a defenseless 3 year old? We know what kind.
Beating and collapsing lungs like it’s 1699.
Ed- The kind of people who beat a defenseless 3 year olds are: People who were beaten as 3 year olds. People who have been taught violence is a way to achieve a goal. People who should not be allowed to bear children. This type of violence “tends,” to be(most often not always) generational. Passed down. Most people incarcerated in the American prison systems (multiple studies have confirmed) are products of extreme physical abuse.
I don’t agree. I think our social media and media in general have alot to do with what we see happen
No matter what your experiences were as a child you have free will to make choices…these low-lives still chose to beat a 3 year old to death…stop making excuses for evil people who murder children…people who murder children are not the victims…the children who are murdered are the victims…please dont be angry I told you that you were wrong…when I was growing up people always told me I was wrong so I am just a product of generational wrong tellers…sorry
Wrong- Pointing out a fact is just that pointing out a fact. Nobody made an excuse. Please don’t put words into my post. “We are products of our past, but we don’t have to be prisoners of it.” Nothing worse than hysterical idealists.
“ No matter what your experiences were as a child you have free will to make choices” The words of a sheltered idealist.
As a previous employer of what once was the Pan American Hotel, this building should’ve been demolished. There were a lot of architectural problems with this building and bed bugs was a big issue throughout the fourth floor. I recall guest always complaining about bites and what not. My condolensecs goes out to this child, I truely hope they are in a better place reading this story breaks my heart especially now that I am a father. I believe in discipline, it doesn’t matter what kind of discipline but there always is a line that should never be crossed and I do not know who is at fault here. RIP young king.
My bet the person with 29 prior arrests is at fault. That is just my bet.
reply to Mr.Ed
these parents who beat toddler to death have no regard of consequences or conscience. This child needed love which in his short time of life never got any moment of happiness or fun. Parents were probably drug addicts & this is their lifestyle .This child is not suffering any longer as he is in Gods home .
This place has been nothing but trouble since it was converted. Remember the xenophobic signs held by the first occupants as they came off the busses ? Remember the woman who wanted to settle a cab fare for a trip from Washington Heights with a sexual favor but the driver objected to her young child being in the vehicle during the transaction? https://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/nyc-crime/cops-hunt-cabbie-allegedly-sexually-assault-mom-queens-article-1.1918409 https://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/26/nyregion/homeless-shelters-opening-in-queens-stirs-ugly-exchanges.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare
You can say the same about every private or city owned housing development or even neighborhood in NYC today. Leave the homeless and working class alone!!
No you most certainly can not say that about every city owned and privately owned development. I’ve live in the big six for over 50 years and can honestly say something likes a child being beaten to death has never happened here in that time frame.
Ds did this m. Dems let this angel be beaten to death. Zymere Perkins has a brother now.
Bring back public hanging.