A 2-year-old boy in New Jersey died after falling from a high-rise apartment building in Newark on Saturday morning.
Officers responded to the Elizabeth Towers complex around 7 a.m. local time on Nov. 15, according to NBC New York, WABC and CBS New York. Officials from Newark and Essex County said the toddler was pronounced dead at the scene.
News crews later captured footage of workers covering an open window on the building’s 20th floor.
The child’s name has not been released. Neighbors told NBC New York that the family recently moved to the area from Ghana. One neighbor, who described the boy as “my little bro,” said they had been playing together just days earlier.
“This building is old, and it needs to be renovated,” the neighbor added.
Residents speaking to CBS New York said many families with young children live in the building, and some have chosen to install safety bars over their windows. One neighbor, Paul Ankrah, said window guards were added to his unit after he informed management that he had a child.
“My windows are safe. Before I moved in, I made sure they put up the barricade,” he explained. “The window is big, it’s really big.”
Another resident, Annie Richardson, told NBC New York that building maintenance appears short-staffed, adding, “They don’t have enough help… to get things going to fix problems.”
Essex County Prosecutor Theodore N. Stephens II and Newark Public Safety Director Emanuel Miranda told NJ.com that the investigation was ongoing as of midday Saturday.
“We need safety,” tenant Belinda Owsumenseh told CBS New York. “There’s a lot of people here that got little kids, and definitely nobody wants that to happen again.”
Authorities are asking anyone with information about the incident to contact the Essex County Prosecutor’s Office Tips Line at 1-877-TIPS-4EC or 1-877-847-7432.
