Sept. 12 (UPI) — Three children are dead after police found them unconscious along the Coney Island shoreline in Brooklyn, N.Y. early Monday morning.
New York Police Department Chief Kenneth Corey said during a news conference on the boardwalk Monday that officers discovered three children, a 7-year-old male, a 4-year-old female and another female who was approximately three-and-a-half months old, at the water’s edge at around 4:42 a.m. Monday.
“The officers immediately initiated life-saving measures on the children and they were rushed to Coney Island Hospital where they were regrettably pronounced deceased,” he said.
Officers responded to an apartment at 3325 Neptune Avenue following a 911 call placed by “a concerned family member who was at a different location” at around 1:40 a.m.
“The caller indicated that she was concerned that her family may have harmed her three small children. Officers responded to the apartment. They received no answer to a knock on the door. Inside the building, they were met by an individual who identified himself to be the father of one of the children who expressed similar concerns,” Corey said.
Officers descended on the area and began searching for the missing children, checking the boardwalk, beach, streets and local hospital.
“The search continued for approximately 90 minutes until the officers, in response to an additional 911 call, were directed to Brighton 6th Street and Riegelmann Boardwalk,” Corey told reporters.
“At that location, the officers found a 30-year-old female believed to be the mother of the three children. She was accompanied by other family members but not the children. The search then intensified, with aviation units, harbor units and additional canvases of the shoreline.”
Officers then located all three of the children along the shoreline.
The children’s mother is being questioned by detectives and was not in custody at the time of the news conference, and had refused to speak so far. The woman was wet when officers first found her but investigators aren’t sure if it’s related.
“The mother was soaking wet. Whether she had been out in the rain or whether she had been in the water (ocean) is all speculative. She was wet, she was barefoot and she was not communicative to the officers,” Corey said, declining to speculate on what transpired before the children were found.
“Right now we are looking for witnesses. We don’t know exactly what happened here. We are going to try to piece this all together.”
