Brooklyn tot covered in bruises fights for his life after suffering horrific abuse, foster mom eyed
Doctors told detectives the boy has numerous internal and external injuries, some old enough to suggest repeated abuse.
Detectives were questioning a Brooklyn foster mom Friday about the brutal beating of a 17-month-old boy in her care, police sources said.
As cops grilled Teyuana Cummings, the city Administration for Children's Services launched their own investigation into the suspected abuse of little Kymell Oram.
The agency also asked the Family Court "to place the two other children from the home into ACS' protective custody," spokeswoman Elysia Murphy said.
In addition to Kymell, Cummings takes care of another foster child - a troubled 9-year-old boy - and is the biological mother of a 10-year-old, sources said.
Neither child showed obvious signs of abuse, they said.
Cummings, 32, has not been charged with a crime, sources said. But cops responding to her 911 call about a child unable to breath were horrified by what they found when they arrived at her East New York apartment about 9:15 a.m. Thursday.
Kymell looked "like he was thrown against the wall on a daily basis" and was "covered with deep bruises," sources said.
Doctors at Brookdale University Hospital, where the boy was in critical condition and barely clinging to life, also found numerous internal injuries - some old enough to suggest repeated abuse, the sources said.
Cops were also seeking to question Cummings' 19-year-old boyfriend, Kysheen Oliver, who lives nearby with an aunt on Howard Ave., about the baby's beating.
"They asked me if I was hiding him in my apartment," said Oliver's neighbor, Chris Otero, 28, who said cops banged on his door Thursday night looking for Oliver. "I don't know if he's capable of that. He's a baby himself."
This is not Cummings' first brush with the law.
In November 2009, she was charged with two counts of assault, menacing, criminal mischief and harassment, records show. It was not clear what happened after that because the case was sealed.
Then last October, Cummings was charged with possession of stolen property after she was caught shoplifting at a Target store on Flatbush Ave.
It was not clear whether Cummings was already taking care of Kymell when she was arrested.
Cummings' next door neighbor Maribel Pejada couldn't say when Kymell came to live with her, but said she was horrible to the boy.
"Sometimes when the baby was crying they would leave the baby outside the door," she said. "They would just leave him there all by himself for hours sometimes. Everyone would hear him crying and crying. He would hit his head against the door trying to get in. It was awful."
Pejada said she heard arguing next door and Kymell crying again on Wednesday night.
"Then I heard a loud thump on the wall and the baby stopped crying," she said.
The crying resumed on Thursday morning.
"The little baby was screaming again," Pejada said. "Screaming real loud. I heard lots of fighting. Lots of arguing."
Pejada said it didn't alarm her - or prompt her to call this cops.
"I hear screaming all the time from that apartment," she said.
Neighbors said Oliver, known in the building as Kiki, wasn't a father to figure to any of Cummings' kids. They said he was just "one of the boys she f----d."
Oliver's older sister said he would never raise a hand against a child.
"My brother would never hurt that baby, not in a million years," said Jackie Oliver, 44. "I don't know about the mother."
With Matthew Lysiak, Rich Schapiro and Kerry Burke
rparascandola@nydailynews.com
Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/news/ny_crime/2011/03/18/2011-03-18_brooklyn_infant_fights_for_his_life_after_suffering_horrific_abuse_say_cops.html#ixzz1H5ikJfP7
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