The state agency responsible for protecting children has been accused of negligence after the death of a 1-year-old boy who in May 2023 was left in a hot car in Puyallup.
Steven Kopp of Graham died in the parking lot of MultiCare Good Samaritan Hospital — his foster mother’s workplace — after he was forgotten in the back seat for roughly nine hours during a day when temperatures hovered in the 70s, according to a lawsuit filed March 14 in Pierce County Superior Court.
The complaint alleges that the Washington State Department of Children, Youth and Families (DCYF), which oversees foster care in the state, placed the boy in a neglectful home which DCYF knew or should have known “posed dangers to his health and safety.”…