Infant, abandoned on Northeast doorstep in freezing temperatures, dies

The Washington Post ^ | 1/16/2012 | unsigned

[KingofZion]

An infant girl found wrapped in a towel on the front steps of a Northeast residence late Sunday night later died, and police are investigating the case as a homicide.

A resident of the 3000 block of Channing Street, NE, was walking home when he saw the unidentified infant on the steps of another home in the same block, police said Tuesday morning. After finding the baby cold and unconscious, he brought the baby into his home and called 911.

Police and Fire and Emergency Medical Services arrived at the scene shortly after 11:30 p.m. and found a neighbor performing CPR on the infant. The baby was then taken to Children’s National Medical Center, where she was pronounced dead at 2:21 a.m. on Monday.

Lt. Robert Alder, a homicide supervisor for the Metropolitan Police, said that detectives are continuing to investigate the circumstances of the death of the baby, described as an African American infant less than one week old. Detectives hope that they can speak to the parent or parents who left the child on the stoop, Alder said, and are awaiting autopsy results expected Monday.

“This is a tragedy, an infant left out in the cold at night,” Alder said.

Temperatures at Reagan National Airport dipped below freezing between 9 p.m. and 10 p.m. on Sunday night, and at the time the baby was found before midnight, temperatures were hovering at about 28 degrees, according to National Weather Service records.

In 2009, the District enacted the Safe Haven law, which allows parents of unwanted babies less than a week old to drop them off at hospitals and fire or police stations without risk of prosecution, as long as the child remains unharmed. It was unclear why the baby was left at the specific doorstep on Channing Street.

[KingofZion]

The moral decay in Washington DC is abominable. Pray for this child's soul.

[gimme1ibertee]

My God. This little angel is in the warm,comforting Arms of the Father right now,safe and sound. Now find the ghoul(s) who did this to this child and SLAM them under the jail.

[jessduntno]

“It was unclear why the baby was left at the specific doorstep on Channing Street.”

Funny...it’s not unclear to US!!!

[davisfh]

“It was unclear why the baby was left at the specific doorstep on Channing Street.”

"Funny...it’s not unclear to US!!!"

Some of us are not familiar with "happenings" on Channing Street. Enlighten us, please.

[Abathar]

I don’t believe the point is Channing St., but how these little things are just an inconvenience to some people and have to be dealt with.

Just ask Obama, the method here might not be what he likes to see, but he is perfectly fine with the end result I’m sure.

[dfwgator]

Yep, I guess the “punishment” was too much for them.

[fso301]

The moral decay in Washington DC is abominable. Pray for this child's soul.

Foundlings go back a long time.

[EternalVigilance]

Sad. Very sad.

And no moral difference whatsoever between this and the “legal” killing that would have been allowed any time during the nine months of pregnancy.

Except the latter evil would have had the sanction of the representatives of We the People.

[chris_bdba]

With most places having the safe haven laws why would anyone leave a baby outside unless hey intended it to die.It would’ve been just as easy to abandon i in a shopping cart inside of a store or some other warm place.

[Mrs. Don-o]

“This is a tragedy, an infant left out in the cold at night,” Alder said.

Alder is from the homicide division. He knows the right word.

[3catsanadog]

When the culprit(s) is/are found, they will claim that they had to run an errand or go to their job or some such excuse and forgot they left the baby out in the cold.

An excuse along the lines of the jerks who leave their kids in locked cars in 90 degree + weather in the summer.

[jessduntno]

Some of us are not familiar with “happenings” on Channing Street. Enlighten us, please.”

I’ll enlighten you...when a country loses its moral compass to the point that killing infants even when abandoning them carries no penalty, not even notification of birth, you have....US.

How’s that? Clear?

[familyop]

That moral decay has been in process longer than most of us know. We received a larger flood of European culture and religion (foreign to Americans at the time) to our shores during the second half of the 1800s.

"Much as I deplore the horrible crime of child-murder, earnestly as I desire its suppression, I cannot believe . . . that such a law would have the desired effect. It seems to me to be only mowing off the top of the noxious weed, while the root remains. We want prevention, not merely punishment. We must reach the root of the evil, and destroy it" (Susan B. Anthony on abortion, "Marriage and Maternity," The Revolution)

"even a cat can be a mother" (Susan B. Anthony, quoted by B.V. Hubbard in "Socialism, feminism, and suffragism, the terrible triplets, connected by the same umbilical cord, and fed from the same nursing bottle" ).

"FFL [Feminists for Life] has emerged as the link between the pro-life and pro-choice worlds, working on efforts such as the enforcement of child support and, the Violence Against Women Act" (Sacred Heart University, "President Of Feminist For Life Of America To Address Sacred Heart" ).

"Then it will be plain that the first condition for the liberation of the wife is to bring the whole female sex back into public industry, and that this in turn demands the abolition of the monogamous family as the economic unit of society" (Frederick Engels, "Origins of the Family, Private Property, and the State").

[af_vet_rr]

Do they not have a program where infants can be dropped off at locations with firefighters?

[Abathar]

I was thinking the same thing. Just walk to the nearest police, fire or ambulance service and step in, drop him off, and leave without having to say a single word.

Hope they find who did this and justice is served, but in all reality a good lawyer and a PPD defense will probably plea it down to time served and counseling.

[jessduntno]

“Foundlings go back a long time. “

Typically, not in deadly weather. And not usually in a healthy society, one that actually encourages “giving them up” at any warm government building.

[Persevero]

I don’t oppose the safe drop off sites, I just don’t think they do much good.

Anyone crazy or evil enough to abandon their baby in such a way is not likely to be affected by a safe drop off option.

Anyway, anyone can place a baby for adoption. It’s no crime, never has been. There is no sanction.

So whoever dumps the baby is either irrational or evil. They aren’t thinking about much else.

[familyop]

An editorial in The Revolution (1), Anthony's and Stanton's radical feminist newspaper, had the following to say about "child murder." "Forced maternity, not out of legal marriage but within it, must lie at the bottom of a vast proportion of such revolting outrages against the laws of nature and our common humanity." Soon thereafter, in the same publication, Gage agreed. "I hesitate not to assert that most of this crime of child murder, abortion, infanticide, lies at the door of the male sex..." [from "OUR STRUGGLE IS FOR ALL LIFE": THE THEOSOPHIST/UNITARIAN FEMINIST PIONEER MATILDA JOSLYN GAGE (1826-1898)].


[Sorry about the rotting sacred cow left in your thread, but after the intensified father-busting and family-busting of the '80s and '90s, more people should know these things.]

[agere_contra]

This was more like infant exposure - which I guess also goes back a long time :0(

[fieldmarshaldj]

Dreadful. RIP.