New Haven Register (New Haven, CT)
Cops: Babysitter left baby in dumpster
‘I had to get that baby out of there,’ says man who found injured child in trash bin
NEW HAVEN — Perry Dennis said he didn’t hear or see the baby at first.
But as he walked away from a dumpster in the 500 block of Dixwell Avenue, he heard a noise.
“I walked maybe a good five beats or so and then I heard a baby crying, I thought it was a cat at first,” he said.
Although police and media reported Dennis is a construction or maintenance worker, he said he was only throwing away his trash from his nearby home at the time of the discovery of the 8-monthold baby girl.
Dennis said he didn’t see or hear the baby in the otherwise empty dumpster when he threw away his trash, but once the heavy lid to the dumpster slammed shut, the baby began to wail. When he discovered the baby, he said he immediately called 911.
“I tried to get the baby out of there, then I saw one of the maintenance workers and asked him to help me,” he said.
He said the baby was shivering, so he ran back to his apartment to grab a blanket to cover her.
“It just shocked me,” he said. “I had to get that baby out of there,” he said. “She was shivering and crying. I immediately saw the hands. Both hands were burnt, but the right hand especially.”
The injured baby girl was found injured but alive in a dumpster outside of the Presidential Gardens apartment complex on Dixwell Avenue.
Police said officers responded to the complex around 2 p.m. after receiving reports that the baby was found. She was found with burns on her hands.
Rick Chardon, a maintenance technician at Presidential Gardens, said Monday the baby had been found by a tenant, who then turned the child over to staff.
A woman who is believed to be the child’s babysitter is charged with allegedly abandoning the baby girl in the dumpster.
Andiana Velez, 24, is charged with risk of injury to a child, second-degree assault and firstdegree reckless endangerment, according to Capt. Anthony Duff.
In addition to allegedly abandoning the child, who remains hospitalized after suffering burns to her hands, Velez is also charged with assaulting the girl’s mother earlier in the day, Duff said. Velez was arraigned Tuesday and was being held in lieu of $500,000 bail.
Dennis said he has two children of his own in their 30s and seven grandchildren — five are girls.
“I can just see the baby’s face. I just had to get that baby out of here. It’s crazy,” he said. “It’s still in my mind how somebody can do something like that.”
“I left yesterday after talking with the police and I just wanted to forget about what I just saw. I left and hung out with friends and just sat there. I didn’t even mention it to them, but they knew. I’m not sure how it got out,” he said.
Dennis said when he first thought it may have been a cat crying out it was because he encountered an especially large one while walking to the dumpster.
“I was laughing. How does a cat get that big? It was funny to me. But then I figured the cat couldn’t have gotten into the dumpster because all the doors were closed. So I turned around and opened the door,” he said.
Dennis said the only thing he found was the baby and her car seat — which she was fastened into about halfway.
Ray Jackson, co-chairman of the Ward 21 Democratic Town Committee and Dennis’ neighbor, said the baby was all he thought about as he tried to sleep Monday night.
“Me and my family, we take good pride in helping people raise up kids, and we raise up each other’s kids and I only see this on TV. It hurts me to see it, but to see it so close to you right then and there, it makes you want to be on the lookout now,” he said.
“Every time we go to the dumpster we have to look and see a little baby isn’t there. Who could be so heartless?”
Jackson said that, as a leader in his community, he wants to spread the word within the ward to bring awareness so it doesn’t happen again.
“They had just emptied the dumpster before that. What if they came and the baby was in there?” he said.
New Haven police and the state Department of Children and Families are continuing to investigate the cause of the child’s injuries, Duff said. “Investigators have not yet determined who is responsible for the infant’s burn injuries,” he said.