NYPD: Mom of baby abandoned in subway in custody

     New York police have detained a 20-year-old woman they say left a baby in a stroller on a subway platform Monday.

 

     A witness told police she saw a woman, described as between 20 and 30 years old, push a stroller from a subway car onto the platform when the doors opened. The woman didn't get off the train, instead letting the doors slide closed and continuing on, according to the witness.

 

     After waiting 20 minutes with the baby on the platform to see if the caretaker or mother would return for the child, the witness alerted police.

 

     The 7-month-old girl is in stable condition at nearby St. Luke's Hospital. She was not malnourished, though she suffers from a bit of eczema, police said.

 

     Early Tuesday morning, police announced they had detained a woman for questioning. They didn't release her name but said she was the baby's mother. 

     Police say the woman pushed the baby's stroller onto the platform from a northbound No. 1 train when it arrived at the Columbus Circle station. They say she then got back onto the train.
    
     The baby is in the care of the Administration for Children's Services.

Follow more of this story at: http://www.myfoxdc.com/story/25963030/nypd-mom-of-baby-abandoned-in-subway-in-custody

Death of Xavier Lyles, 3, in Southeast D.C. is ruled a homicide

The Washington Post reported:

3 year-old Xavier Lyles

     A 3-year-old boy found dead Tuesday morning in a Southeast Washington apartment was beaten, according to D.C police, who said on Thursday that the death has been ruled a homicide by blunt-
force trauma.

     Authorities identified the child as Xavier Lyles of Southeast. A search warrant application filed in D.C. Superior Court says paramedics noticed bruising on the boy’s body. Authorities did not comment on whether a suspect has been identified.

     Police said they were called about 11:10 a.m. Tuesday to the fourth-floor apartment where the boy lived with his sister and mother in the 2500 block of Pomeroy Road SE. The emergency call was for a child not breathing.

     The boy’s mother told police that her son had no health problems and that she had put him in his sister’s bed about 5:30 p.m. on Monday, according to the search warrant. That document says the mother reported that she checked on Xavier at 8 that night and that he “opened his eyes and went back to sleep.”

     About 10 a.m. Wednesday, police said in the warrant application, Xavier’s 9-year-old sister found that her brother had vomited and was unresponsive. Police said the mother called her cousin, then 911. Paramedics pronounced Xavier dead at the scene and the body was taken to the medical examiner’s office for an autopsy.

    

     Police said they interviewed family members and other witnesses and concluded that the child had been beaten. Police would not comment further. Relatives, including Xavier’s mother, could not be reached for comment over the past two days.

     Neighbors said the victim’s mother had lived at the apartment for about a year but didn’t interact much with other tenants. Police said in the search warrant document that detectives seized as evidence a fitted sheet, a matching pillowcase and a colored pillowcase.
    
     Xavier is the third child whose death was ruled a homicide in the District this year. The children in the other two cases died in 2013, but those cases were not immediately determined to be homicides.
In one, a 31-year-old woman was charged with felony murder after authorities alleged that she fed her month-old son, Hakeem Brown, a fatal dose of a prescription allergy and motion sickness medication. The woman told police she gave the infant the ground-up pill because he was being fussy about eating, according to court documents. Tisheena Louise Brown of Southeast pleaded guilty to voluntary manslaughter and is scheduled to be sentenced July 18.

      In another, a 21-year-old woman was charged with killing her newborn son in the bathtub of her family’s Northwest Washington apartment. Lillian Alvarado told police that her baby — who was never named — had been born dead, but police said the death was ruled a homicide by asphyxiation and dismemberment. Alvarado, charged with first-degree murder, has a hearing on her mental status scheduled for July 24.

     There were three infants or young children slain in the District in 2013.

Family, students mourn sudden death of beloved Magruder High School teacher

OLNEY, Md. - The sudden death of a Magruder High School teacher and counselor earlier this month has touched many lives across Montgomery County.
Denise Schaefer meant a lot to many people. Most of all, her husband, Geoff.
"She went in on Thursday morning and she died on Saturday at 5:15 a.m.," Schaefer tells us.
He thought Denise had the flu, but the fever that took Denise at age 38 was brought on by a rare blood infection.
"As sad as it is," Geoff Schaefer says, "it also makes you realize what you have."
Married nine years, Geoff and Denise had two little girls and a special kind of love.
"I guess you know the power of the individual goes farther than you think it does because just by being with her, I have this huge community saying 'We have you.'"
Geoff is an English teacher and volleyball coach at Walt Whitman High School in Bethesda.
Denise was a math teacher, softball coach and counselor during her many years at Magruder High School in Rockville.
"(She) established very meaningful relationships, very enthusiastic and full of a lot of energy," says Magruder's principal, Lee Evans.
"For some, who have really close relationships, or who had close relationships with Ms. Schaefer, it's hard," Mr. Evans explains.
Students have created two poster memorials inside the school. One is in the main hallway. The other inside Magruder's Counseling Center.
On one of the posters, one student wrote: "Thank you, Ms. Schaefer for all you had done for me."
Another adding: "You are the best counselor I have ever had."
The door to Schaefer's office hasn't been opened since she died.
"Just dealing with the loss and just not being able to move forward with business as usual," Mr. Evans says. "I haven't been able to do that."
Magruder plans to remember Ms. Schaefer in a special way -- the school is considering naming the softball field's home dugout in her honor.
Geoff says telling Hailey, who is five years old, and Katelyn, 3, was heartbreaking. He says he took the advice of a friend.
He says, "You can't just say, 'Mommy went away.' Because squirrels go away, but they come back. 'Mommy went to bed. Mommy went to sleep.' Because they're going to go to sleep. And you simply have to say, 'Mommy died.'"
He goes on to say, "The worst I heard was that Hailey turned to me and said, 'Do we get a new mommy?' And that hurts to say that because what do you say back to her besides you hold her and say, 'Sorry, no.'"
Schaefer says he has been talking to the girls a good deal.
"We've read some books and we're going to go visit the gravesite together," he tells us. "We're not just going to dismiss this situation. The girls have to know how important she was in their lives and how she will continue to be in other ways."
There has been a huge outpouring of love and support for Geoff and the girls on social media. Friends have created a place where you can donate to a fund to support the Schaefer family: http://www.gofundme.com/9442bc
Geoff and Denise clearly touched many lives -- from their home in Olney, teaching jobs in Rockville and Bethesda, and in Potomac, where Geoff is a longtime swim coach at Country Glen Swim and Tennis Club.
In terms of raising Hailey and Katelyn as a single father, Geoff says he has got a lot of work to do.
"Without my friends, without our neighbors, both schools, Country Glen (my swim club), I don't know how I'd get through this because people are stopping their own lives to make sure our lives are put back together,” he says


Read more: http://www.myfoxdc.com/story/25646019/family-students-mourn-sudden-death-of-beloved-magruder-high-school-teacher#ixzz339VOB15P

6 year-old shot at DC Playground

Kalia Smalley

          A 6-year-old girl is recovering at a local hospital after she was hit in the leg by stray gunfire at a Northwest D.C. playground.
    A 25-year-old man was also shot. He got into a car with a friend or relative and was taken to the hospital to get treated for his wounds.
Witnesses say as many as 20 children were on the slides and swings at a playground at the Park Morton apartment complex when a man in black pulled out a pistol and walked through the play area targeting another man.
    Kalia Smalley is up and moving around with the help of a walker and staying close by her mother’s side. The bullet struck her left leg -- just missing bone.
    "I thank God that he is protecting my child even though she was in the wrong place at the wrong time,” said her mother, Calandra Smalley. “You know, things happen.”
     Kalia’s mother said she ran toward the playground when she heard the gunfire and found her daughter running toward her. She used a jacket to stop the bleeding and waited for help to arrive. She is now furious with the gunman.
     "Anytime you could go on the playground and just open fire with innocent kids there, you don't have regard for anything,” Calandra said. “And a person like this shouldn’t be out on the street. They should be in jail.”
     Another mother who witnessed the attack from her apartment above the playground and did not want to be identified said the man with the gun had only one thing in mind.
     "When I realized, I was like, ‘Oh my gosh, look at the kids, they’re on the floor, the mothers are yelling,’” she said. “I started yelling [at the gunman], ‘What are you doing? There are kids out there!’ He didn't care what anybody was saying.”
     "Even a pregnant woman was outside and I saw her dive into her twins not caring that she was pregnant to make sure that her twins were safe.”
     One of the rounds hit the stairs leading to the slides and another went right through a slide.
A law enforcement source familiar with the investigation said eight shell casings were found on the playground.
     There are surveillance cameras surrounding the playground, but it is unclear if they recorded anything at this point that will be helpful to police.

Read more at: http://www.myfoxdc.com/story/25570614/2-people-including-juvenile-girl-shot-in-northwest-dc#ixzz32juxJlbQ

Shamika Young: Is She Responsible for the Disappearance of Relisha Rudd?

Missing eight year-old Relisha Rudd

     For the pass two months communities in the DC Metropolitan Area have focused most of their attention towards missing eight year-old Relisha Rudd.  Rudd was last seen on March 1, 2014 with Khalil Tatum, a 51 year-old janitor at DC General Homeless Shelter where Rudd was living with her mother, step-father and other siblings.  Shamika Young refuses to answer and questions relating to Tatum, leaving society to question her moral ethics as a mother, and agreeing that someone needs be held accountable for her daughter disappearance, and Young being number one on everyone's list.

     Young allowed Tatum to have a relationship with her only daughter, where he would tend to Relisha more than Young's other children, give the girl gifts, and even take her off the premises.  For whatever reasoning to Young seem fit to allow an adult man to have this type of association with your child, the shelter's employment policy deemed it inappropriate and unacceptable; a policy Tatum was completely aware of.  An issue that questions Tatum true intention of catering to Relisha, and Young's exact involvement.  Why was Young accepting in allowing a complete stranger take her child out of arms reach for weeks without even reporting her missing, reporting that she last seen Relisha on February 26, 2014.  Young was not even the one who reported her daughter missing for almost a month.  School officials were the ones who contacted DC authorities once Relisha accumulated repeated unexcused absences.  The school social worker informed authorities that the girl was being treated by a "Dr. Tatum", Young helped Tatum pose as a doctor who would provide documentation for Relisha's absences.  At no point in between this time frame did Young alert authorities nor anyone else about Relisha's disappearance.  When questioned by police for the whereabouts of Relisha, Young  replied, "Oh, she's not missing.  She's with a person that we trust and know. And she's just fine".

Khalil Tatum

     Tatum's wife body was found shoot to death at Red Roof Inn in Oxon Hill, Maryland, after an Amber Alert was issued for Relisha, leading Prince George's County Police to the hotel on a door to door search of the premises.  Tatum had then became wanted by the FBI for the murder of his wife, Andrea Tatum.  DC authorities later responded to a tip that Tatum was last seen in Kenilworth Park in northeast DC after purchasing large trash bags and a shovel.  On the suspicion that he may have disposed of Relisha's body.  As respondents searched the park, Tatum's body was found March 31, 2014 with an apparent self inflicted gun shot wound.  Again, we question Young.  So, this is the man that you trusted your eight year-old daughter with?  Even though, all hope seems lost, many think Relisha is still alive; but, trapped in the gruesome world of human trafficking.  In a belief that Young sold her daughter, when pictures were posted on social media of materialistic items and large sums of cash.  Young's mother tried to defend that fact by stating Young and her boyfriend both get social security checks, and that they've just received a settlement from an automobile accident.  Yet, they still remain to live in a homeless shelter.  Young's unapologetic attitude and need to show no remorse, shows the truth behind the disappearance of Relisha Rudd.  We will continue to keep hope alive, and pray for your safe return home, Relisha, to warm and loving arms that would have never let this happen to you in the beginning.
   

Shamika Young

 A Grand Jury is currently considering charging Shamika Young with obstruction of justice, for hindering the investigation as authorities searched for Relisha.