Cohen & Cohen Calls for Accountability Among Landlords and Owners

WASHINGTON, Dec. 18, 2025 /PRNewswire/ -- The question haunts Jane and Jim Doe: How does a 4-year-old boy fall 11 stories to his death on a Saturday afternoon while his parents are home in 2025—when landlords and management companies have known for decades exactly how to prevent these tragedies?

On August 30, 2025, their son fell from their Northwest D.C. apartment window. First responders were called to the 300 block of Massachusetts Avenue NW around 1:58 p.m. The child was pronounced dead at the scene, and the Metropolitan Police Department and medical examiner are conducting a death investigation.

But the boy's family and Cohen & Cohen attorneys already know one thing for certain: this horrific accident was preventable—and the fact that it still happened in 2025 is forcing D.C. to confront a decades-old safety crisis.

"It's 2025—landlords and management companies have known for decades how to prevent children from falling out of windows," said attorney Kim Brooks Rodney, "There is absolutely no reason that in a modern apartment building, any window accessible to a toddler would be left unprotected or able to open wide enough for a child to fall through."

How this keeps happening:

• Building owners fail to install inexpensive safety devices ($2-$30)
• D.C. lacks mandatory window safety requirements (unlike some jurisdictions)
• Parents are unaware that window screens provide zero fall protection
• Landlords treat window safety as optional rather than essential
• No accountability system exists for building owners who neglect safety

The preventable tragedy is part of a regional pattern. Recent D.C. area incidents include a 3-year-old who survived a second-story fall and a 2-year-old who miraculously survived a 15-story fall—both in May 2025.

Other jurisdictions such as Montgomery County, Maryland have recently enacted requirements for window guards in rental units with children 10 and younger—proof that policy solutions exist and work.

"We have the technology and we have the knowledge," Rodney emphasized. "What we need now is the will and the care from building owners to do the right thing."

SOURCE Cohen & Cohen