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Drop-in camps get new rules

Boston Police Department Commisioner William Evans spoke Friday.Barry Chin/Globe Staff

Boston Mayor Martin J. Walsh on Friday announced a host of new oversight requirements at the city’s summer programs for children, as officials released new details about
the drowning of a 7-year-old boy at one of the centers this week.

Walsh said the city would increase staffing requirements and conduct hourly head counts of children at five drop-in summer programs, which are not regulated as strictly as camps.

Police announced Friday that Kyzr Willis’s death on Tuesday was a drowning accident, and they provided the first detailed timeline of how the sweet, athletic little boy went from striding happily up the beach at 2:15 p.m. — easy to spot in the bright yellow swim trunks that camp counselors had given him — to being discovered underwater four hours later, some 20 yards from shore.

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“It breaks everyone’s heart,” Boston Police Commissioner William B. Evans said at a news conference. “I think the whole city is grieving.”

Kyzr slipped away unnoticed from two dozen teenage counselors, eight lifeguards, and three adult employees at the Curley Community Center in South Boston, where he was attending a drop-in program with his brother, cousin, and more than 50 other children.

At 2:15 p.m., the program director had lifeguards and counselors call the children out of the water at Carson Beach, so they could be ready to be picked up at 3 p.m. Counselors said they “clearly” saw the boy in his bright trunks getting out of the water. His older brother, Ralph, and his cousin were close behind, Evans said.

A little after 2:30 p.m., the beach was cleared of swimmers, and the lifeguards began heading toward the L Street Bathhouse, which is part of the Curley Center. Ralph looked for his brother, and found his clothes — but could not find Kyzr.

Ralph immediately told counselors, Evans said, and they began to look for Kyzr, inside and outside the building. At 2:38 p.m., Kyzr’s cousin called Kyzr’s mother to tell her he was missing. Just two minutes later, the beach was shut down and lifeguards went into the water.

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The director of the bathhouse called 911 at 2:49 p.m., Evans said. On the beach, lifeguards linked arms and waded through the waves.

Police arrived on the scene at 2:53 p.m., and by 2:55 p.m., units were summoned from across the city, along with the Coast Guard and State Police. Investigators were initially told that Kyzr had walked out of the bathhouse toward the street, and officers searched Day Boulevard. But the search in the water never stopped, Evans said.

Around 6 p.m., the Quincy harbor patrol picked up an image in the water about 20 yards from shore. A robot sent into the water with a camera confirmed their fears: It was Kyzr. Divers brought him out of the water, and he was declared dead at 7:09 p.m.

“Obviously, the big question here is the timeline of when he went in the water,” Evans said. “Unfortunately, we don’t know the exact timeline. All we can do is approximate that he went in between 2:15 and 2:30.”

The child was a “star” at the camp, Evans said, and counselors loved playing with him. Just that day, a counselor was helping Kyzr with his swimming, holding him up while he kicked. The boy was not a strong swimmer, he said.

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“They loved him,” Evans said of the camp staff. “He was a good child.”

Kyzr’s father, Ralph Toney, said staff should have supervised Kyzr more closely and criticized the program for leaving teenagers in charge of young children.

“If he had been watched better, then this wouldn’t have happened,” Toney said. “My son was a loving kid. He had a whole lot of life ahead of him . . . his brother is going to mourn this for the rest of his life.”

Toney said he could not envision his son walking into the water by himself and questioned the timeline provided by police. His family met with investigators, but he still did not know whether counselors were performing head counts of the children, he said.

A wake will be held for Kyzr Wednesday at Morning Star Baptist Church in Mattapan. Funeral services will be held Thursday.

Toney said that when he put his son to bed Monday night, he was looking forward to collecting hermit crabs on the beach the next day.

“Oh Daddy, I can’t wait to go back to camp,” he told him.

The new regulations followed a review of drop-in programs and summer camps run by the city’s Centers for Youth & Families. The city runs 21 fully licensed summer camps, seven fun stops, and five drop-in programs.

Drop-in centers, unlike summer camps, are not regulated by the city’s Inspectional Services Department and until now had few clearly defined and uniform operating procedures, the city said.

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The most rigorous standards will be adopted at the Curley Center, where no more than 10 children and two staff members will be allowed in the water at any time, and children must wear life preservers.

Thirty-four security cameras will be added by Tuesday, and a camp staff member will be placed at the front desk to ensure that children do not leave the building unaccompanied.

Staff at all drop-in programs will count children every hour, as well as before and after going through entrances and exits.

When children move between activities, they will walk in line, bookended by staff members with an additional staffer walking alongside.

Walsh said Kyzr’s death has had a profound impact on city officials.

“For the rest of my time as mayor and long after, I’ll be thinking about Kyzr Willis,” Walsh said.


Evan Allen can be reached at evan.allen@globe.com. Follow her on Twitter @evanmallen. Laura Crimaldi can be reached at laura.crimaldi@globe.com. Follow her on Twitter @lauracrimaldi. Travis Andersen can be reached at travis.andersen@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter @TAGlobe.