Everyone knew Thomas Valva and his brothers were in danger but it did not matter 

Thomas Valva was in terrible danger, and plenty of people knew it.

The 8-year-old boy’s mother, Justyna Zubko-Valva, tried to spread the word via a Twitter account titled “StandAgainstChildAbuse” that included documents and audio and video evidence she said proved that Thomas, 8, and his older brother, Anthony, 10, and younger brother, Andrew, 6, were being abused.

A nanny who worked in the house home where the boys lived told Newsday that she often came home crying and how was she forced to quit the job because of the way Michael Valva and his fiancee, Angela Pollina, treated the children. Amanda Wildman said the abuse she saw in 2017 and 2018 was mostly verbal, but also included the boys being forced to sit immobile until they urinated on themselves, and then were punished for doing so.

The Suffolk County Department of Social Services investigated after child neglect petitions were filed in 2018, and a judge ordered home supervision by DSS for a year, issued orders of protection for the boys that required Valva and Pollina to “refrain from harmful behaviors toward the children” and mandated them to attend parenting classes. After that year of home supervision, Child Protective Services received additional complaints about abuse in the home.

Thomas Valva died on Jan. 17. When police responded to a 911 call from his father, an NYPD transit officer, and Pollina, the pair claimed the boy had fallen on the driveway. But Thomas’ body temperature was 76 degrees when he arrived at the hospital, where he soon died of hypothermia. Valva, 40, and Angela Pollina, 42, are charged with murder.

According to police, video surveillance from the home shows Thomas and Anthony were left to sleep in the unheated garage on a bare concrete floor the night before Thomas died, when the temperature dipped to 19 degrees. The home is 2,700 square feet and has four bedrooms.

Police have described a harrowing collection of audio and video evidence showing Valva and Pollina’s abuse before joking about him falling repeatedly due to hypothermia and choking him.

The boys’ mother, who had not seen them for two years after a contentious divorce battle, has been granted temporary custody of her other two sons, Anthony and Andrew. Police are investigating whether Pollina’s three daughters, who also lived in the home, were abused.

Department of Social Services now says DSS is reviewing the management of the case. A separate task force will look at how CPS handles cases of children with autism and developmental disabilities, of which Thomas exhibited symptoms. The state’s Office of Children and Family Services will independently audit what happened.

District Attorney Tim Sini should investigate whether Valva’s status as an NYPD officer afforded him special treatment in the courts. And the Office of Court Administration must review the actions of the family court judges and others in the judicial process charged with looking out for Thomas. The review should be unsparing.

This child should not be dead. His loss is a tragic failure in a system that unfortunately gets too little oversight and resources until the worst happens. Answers as to how and why this happened must be supplied. This should never have been allowed to happen to Thomas. Unless we get answers about what happened, it will happen again. It cannot be allowed to happen again. — The editorial board