Latyr Sene three year old Harlem boy falls to his death from a thirteen floor window. Who bears culpability in one child’s death? Investigations continue.
Latyr Sene, 3 year old toddler has died after falling out of a thirteen story window at a Harlem, NYC housing project on Sunday night after managing to push out a ‘loose’ window guard.
Rushed to hospital in cardiac arrest after falling from the Harlem River Houses II located at 2850 Fredrick Douglass Blvd and 151st, at around 7.20pm, the boy was pronounced dead at 7.36 pm according to law enforcement sources.
At the time of the incident, the three year old boy was playing with his twin brother when he fell out of the 13th floor Harlem window onto the ‘grassy’ area below.
A window guard lay on the ground near Latyr Sene’s body.
A report via the nypost tells of the toddler’s parents, both African immigrants being taken away by an EMS supervisor moments later. The parents late Sunday evening were taken to the NYPD’s 32nd Precinct station house for further interviews.
Not necessarily understood is whether the child’s parents were charged?
Sources said the bars that were supposed to be secured in place outside the window were loose, allowing for the child, Latyr Sene, to easily push them to the ground below.
A report via pix11 tells of someone in the apartment having recently moved an air conditioner unit from one part of the apartment to another room and having inadvertently left the window guard loose.
‘We heard a big bang,’ said Annette Aiken, a 47-year-old resident who lives on the 9th floor and saw the boy moments after he fell.
Reiterated the shocked neighbor: ‘We were in the kitchen of our apartment. We saw people pointing, saw firemen, looked out the window and saw the baby not moving, all twisted up,”
Adding: ‘Then we yelled, ‘Oh my God! Oh My God! The lady’s baby fell out the window! There’s a baby on the ground! There’s a baby on the ground!’ He ain’t had no shirt on, just his drawers. Poor child.’
Another resident, on the 7th floor described the boy striking her air conditioner on the way down.
‘[It sounded] like a big boom!’ said the neighbor.
Aiken told of the three year old boy having an identical twin brother, stressing that the child’s parents ‘are very nice people.’
Offered the neighbor: ‘[They’re] always with the twins,’ adding that the mother ‘always had her babies with her.’
Offered another neighbor observing the commotion after the child had fallen, ‘The mother had the other twin in her arm.’
Adding: ‘My knees buckled. I couldn’t bear to look out the window. I ran downstairs [and] the fire department was trying to revive him and I just totally lost it.’
Told Charles Cabbell, 65, who at the time was walking home when he saw what he described a ‘movement’ catching his eye, ‘I saw something coming down.’
Adding: ‘I thought they threw some trash out the window at first, but then I heard the slam. I went over there and saw that there was a baby on the ground,’
‘From that fall, a 3-year-old baby, his bones are fragile. He couldn’t have made it. He’s just a little baby. He’s not going to get a chance to go to school or any of that.’
Not necessarily understood at present is whether the building had previous violations, whether they had been dealt with and or whether the child’s parents had made any efforts to deal with the loose window guard and if not, why?
A report via the nydailynews tells of NYCHA not haviing a record of the three year old boy or his parents being residents of the building.
State law requires property owners to have working window guards where children age 10 or under reside, and tenants must inform the owners if young kids live there.
To date, police have not yet necessarily decided whether the incident, some are calling an accident will lead to any charges or mandates against the parent’s or the housing project?
