Children: Parental Abuse

Nixzmary Brown photo from The Gothamist

If you live in or around New York, you've probably heard the story of Nixzmary Brown, whose parents are currently on trial for her murder. Well, her mother and stepfather, to be more accurate.

If you're a sensitive soul, please don't read any further. Nixzmary's story is the best argument in the world for mandatory reversible sterilization of people under the age of 30.

Nixzmary Brown was seven years old when she died. She weighed 36lb at her death. According to an article in the New York Times (login required), that is the average weight of a child half Nixzmary's age. She lived with her mother, Nixzaliz Santiago, her mother's current partner, her stepfather Cesar Rodriguez, and her five siblings in an apartment in Bedford-Stuyvesant. She was beaten, starved, tied up in a room by herself, forced to use a litterbox as a toilet.

Finally, on or around 10 or 11 January 2006, she took a container of pudding which her stepfather said she had no right to take. So he hit her in the head, causing a blood clot on her brain. He then stripped her naked, held her head under a running cold water faucet (in midwinter!). Then he dragged the wet, injured child to her lockup and threw her violently on the floor as she moaned in pain.

We are sympathetic to the plight of people with young children. We understand quite well that children can be really really annoying when a parent is tired, overworked, poor, stressed out. We understand that there are times when a parent contemplates violence towards their own child (and any parent who says they never have is lying through their teeth or rich enough to afford a nanny and doesn't spend enough time with the kid to get annoyed).

But we have no sympathy for the man who beat this child to death. And no sympathy for her mother who stood by and watched and did not try to protect her child.

And here's why we favour mandatory reversible sterilization for women and men under the age of 30: The mother and stepfather of this child are both 27 years old. They had six children under the age of 10 years; and the mother had been recently pregnant (again??!!) and suffered a miscarriage for which she blamed her now-dead daughter.

It's difficult enough for two adults to deal with a single child. When they outnumber you, the chances of a stressed-out parent losing control increase with each additional child. Add to the mix a lack of education, poverty, ignorance, the worst aspects of religion, a history of domestic violence and abuse in both parents' background, lack of a family or community support network, and the fact that some of the children are not biologically related to the father, and you have nothing short of a toxic stew.

Add to that a mother recently pregnant who has suffered a miscarriage, and whose body is flooded with the hormones that can make a woman crazy. And throw in the loss of the sole breadwinner's job:

[...] three days before Christmas, Mr. Rodriguez said, he was fired from his job as a security guard and could not buy the children presents. Broke, and with bills piling up, he would stay home with the children.

"I just felt like everything was closing in," he said.

Detective Joseph Bello, assigned to the case, describes the child's body:

"She was severely bruised, a purple tint covered almost her whole body."

The Gothamist goes on to describe her:

Her half-opened eyes were blackened." Her body also had "ugly cuts."

Note: Although one article claims Santiago and Rodriguez each had two children from a previous marriage, another claims that Ms. Santiago had four children by four different men. Which would make Mr. Rodriguez the father of only two of her children, the 18-month old and the 6-month-old boys. Although many alarm bells preceded Nixzmary Brown's death, few of them could be answered by a city overwhelmed by budget cuts, shortages of trained staff, overburdened caseworkers, and many victims needing help.

After their first visit, caseworkers decided that Ms. Santiago was overwhelmed by her six children. They believed they had persuaded her to return Nixzmary to school and closed the case[,...].

And where is the girl's biological father in all this? According to the Times, Nixzmary Brown's father is a Pakistani-American who gives his name as Mian. The mother, Nixzaliz Santiago, apparently does not know Mian's last name. According to the Village Voice, Nixzmary's biological father is one Abdurrahman Mian.

Last month, Mian, who had not seen Nixzmary when she was alive, stepped forward to announce that he will seek control of the little girl's estate, which could be worth millions of dollars thanks to lawsuits charging the city of New York with negligence. Revelations in the case prompted Mayor Mike Bloomberg to shake up the city's Administration for Children's Services.

My god, this is disgusting. What a vulture.

Carlos Batista, the father of Javier [last name unknown], Nixzaliz Santiago's 9-year-old son and Nixzmary Brown's older brother, has come forward to demand custody of his son and compensation from the agency charged with protecting the child and his siblings (the ACS, or Administration for Children's Services). Batista, who, like Nixzaliz Santiago, is a native of Puerto Rico, is a firefighter and says he is capable of giving his son a good home. He attributes his failure to stay in touch with his son over the past years to Ms. Santiago's attempts to keep him from his child.

Meanwhile the man who helped raise Nixzmary Brown and gave her his last name spoke to reporters yesterday. Edward Brown, who is the father of two of Nixzaliz Santiago's children, is seeking custody of his children. He, like many others who have heard or read this story, would like to kill Cesar Rodriguez. Unfortunately, killing Rodriguez will have no effect whatsoever on the next Nixzmary.

Note: Nixzaliz Santiago and Cesar Rodriguez are not being charged with first-degree murder in Nixzmary's death because

[...] the prosecution would have to prove both torture and that the defendants were enjoying the torture -- a nearly impossible legal standard that [the Brooklyn Assistant D.A.] believes should be changed.

If you can bear to look at it, some of the evidence presented in the trial of Cesar Rodriguez is available here. Nixzaliz Santiago, Nixzmary's mother, has a trial scheduled later this year.

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