UPDATE: Mom Who Abandoned Young Daughters On Brooklyn Street Corner Is Caught

UPDATE—The mother who left her two young daughters on a Brooklyn sidewalk with nothing but extra disposable diapers in their tiny hands has been arrested and charged with two counts of endangering the welfare of a child. Dalisha Adams, 26, was charged Monday, a day after her daughters, Dominae, 5, and Diani, 3, were found standing out in the cold on a busy intersection in Canarsie.

Police sources told the Daily News that they found the girls, ages 5 and 3, after an elderly couple spotted them standing in front of the Bay View Houses at Shore Parkway and E. 102nd street in Canarsie and called police. Witnesses told the paper that the two were wandering up and down the street, playing among themselves unsupervised before police found them.

According to the Daily News, the older child told police her name is Domini and that her little sister’s name is Dioni; she also said her mother’s name is Dalisha, that she thought her family lives on 53rd Street in a blue house with flowers on the front, and that her mom was driving a white car. But the little girl didn’t know what New York City borough they lived in or the make and model of the automobile. “Mommy just left us on the sidewalk and drove away,” the older girl told a Daily News photographer who happened to be on the scene.

Police sources said the girls, who were dressed in hooded down coats and UGG boots, did not appear to be abused, but they were taken to a local hospital to be checked and then turned over to child services.

A neighbor at the Breukelen Houses told the Daily News that Dalisha Adams often screamed at the girls and their older sister, constantly telling them to “Shut the f— up” and threatening to punch her youngest daughter in the face. The neighbor, who refused to be identified, added that she heard another blow-up on Sunday, not long before the girls were found two miles away from their home. “A kid was crying. She was saying, ‘Stop crying. Shut the f— up. I’m gonna get you out of here,’” the neighbor said.

Earlier, I asked each of you to say a prayer for these babies that they do not get sucked into the foster care system, where, all too often, brown babies languish for years without finding families to give them the love, safety and security their parents could not. I asked you to pray, too, for the mother, because, as cruel and wrong as she was to abandon her daughters on that busy street corner in Brooklyn, we haven’t a clue what her circumstances are, what kind of mental state she is in or the level of desperation she could have been feeling when she left them there. But if what the neighbor says is true and this mother has a history of, at the very least, verbally abusing her daughters, or worse, physically and mentally abusing them with such antics like leaving them on street corners, say a prayer that those children find and know love, and that their mother ends up in a prison cell somewhere with another mother who’ll teach her a few hard lessons about what not to do to children.

{Photo credit: Todd Maisel of the Daily News}

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Denene Millner

Mom. NY Times bestselling author. Pop culture ninja. Unapologetic lover of shoes, bacon and babies. Nice with the verbs. Founder of the top black parenting website, MyBrownBaby.

25 Comments

  1. Hopefully, the police will get to the bottom of this. I do they are able to find a next of kin that will adopt these beautiful little ones & give them a great life. Kids go through so much once they hit the foster system.

  2. So sad. I too hope they don’t get sucked into foster care. Poor Babies…

  3. This is very sad news, the economy is getting the best of us!

  4. omg that girl needs 2 be arrested and faced with BIG RED !!!!!! leaving those 2 poor girls like that !!!! even if u dont believe in GOD leaving them in a church would had better 4 both their safety & health

  5. That’s so sad. I haven’t heard of this story I’ve been watching the news all morning. Thanks for sharing it and I’ll be sure to say a prayer for the girls and their mom.

  6. This makes me just ill but… at least we can be glad this was abandonment and not something worse. These poor kids….

  7. I think I would die before I would leave my children like that. I am not judging, but, as I sit here and think of all the horrible things that could have possibly made this women (I use the word loosely) leave her children that way, I can not think of one in which I would choose the same option. People only think of themselves in situations like this. Think of the impact this will have on the girls, and how they will view life from this point on. There had to have been a better way.

  8. She was obviously seeking help. It sounds like she was completely overwhelmed and felt that leaving them on a ‘busy’ street was better than what would happen if she didn’t take them there. (A crisis mind would think that the kids would be taken care of by someone very quickly on a busy street.) A lot of times people don’t know what to do when they feel like they are in crisis–sometimes they don’t even know that they are in crisis-they don’t know their options or resources out their to help them. It isn’t that easy if you don’t have any friends or family that live close to call for help. It’s not as simple as calling a crisis line for a babysitter when you are exhausted, overwhelmed, dealing with anxiety, depression, addiction, abuse, etc. And even if it is…it all sounds so logical as we sit behind our computers and read this story without living her daily life and not experiencing crisis. I hope she gets the help that she needs. I hope it’s fast and realistically manageable so those beautiful babies don’t have to be separated, moved around or stuck in long term foster care. My prayers go out to the entire family!

  9. It breaks my heart whenever I hear of children suffering, when a mother’s reached her breaking point. You’re right we don’t know what went on, or what that mother was thinking, but thank God those two little girls weren’t snatched off the street. Someone looked out for them and I pray, someone will continue to do so.

  10. I so agree with Jodi. I still pray that the mother is given some type of help. We don’t know if the neighbor’s accounts are true, but even if they are we still only know a portion of the story. I don’t believe in vigilante or prison justice – it does nothing to solve the root cause of the problem. My heart goes out to them all, especially the young girls who were defenseless but also the young mother who was troubled and/or lost. What a tragic story. Praying for them all.

  11. I don’t wish she ends up in prison; if she can be helped, I hope she finds the help she needs. We don’t know what her life is like, so we shouldn’t give our two cents. If there are family who love them, I hope that they can also help. It’s hard to raise children, while young, with no help. I hope everyone involved agrees to work together and to the betterment of these babies…. <3

  12. So much I can say about this but I will leave it at this: it’s not the economy. Black people have been poor, losing homes, struggling, living in and with hard times since we got to this nation. Poverty has not made us a community of abusers. That I won’t accept.

  13. Praying that whatever happens to those sisters, they can remain together. The last thing they need is to be separated. Lord Jesus please keep them together. Now as for the Momma, please forgive me for not praying for her right now.

  14. I hope da mother gets help as well as those kids

  15. Jacqueline Lewis

    Hurting people hurt people. Maybe the mother can get the help she needs. There are alot of things she could have done to those kids. And as horrible as it seems, this could have been the best she could do. Maybe not the best we could do, but the best she could do. I pray that this family gets the help that they need. Those babies will learn how now to hurt there babies.

  16. Unfortunately this situation took place. Understand something no one know what was going on in the mothers head except I see a cry for help. She may have been somewhere close watching to make sure the girls were not harmed. The girls looked as though they were clean, they did not look physically abused I may be wrong but if they were
    physically abused it would have shown. So please help this mother with whatever will help her be the person and mother that she want to be. I will be praying for that this family be blessed with the happiness they deserved.

  17. God bless the Mother and children and also ther father who was clearly nowhere to be found…We are so quick to jump down the Mother’s throat when there is a father who is equally responsible…We need to look at the big picture, noone in their right mind would do this…We dont even know the whole story…dont say your praying for the children and follow it by bashing the mother, God is not down with that. We also love the oppurtunity to look down our noses, look in your own life and pray for yourself and hope you wake up in your right mind and dont ever end up in this young womans shoes. WHAT WE LOOK DOWN ON, WE WILL ULTIMATELY BECOME! EITHER DIRECTLY OR INDIRECTLY-StormyMonday
    I wish I could have heelped her

  18. As a retired public welfare family social worker, I totally agree with Jodie. Unfortunately the children will have to go into foster care for now. However let us pray the mother is willing to accept psychological assistance and it is good assistance. The mother’s family appears not to be very helpful if she has a family.But as others have said WE DON’T KNOW. But it would be good if there is appropriate family to care for the children until the mother can hopefully heal. Although, we all would prefer these children be with family, we don’t want them to be with unhealthy family.

  19. This is sad indeed. I hope the two girls find a loving home!

  20. dalisha please e-mail me this is one of your old counselors from NY Foundling commomford

  21. Can any one tell me how to go about adopting these girls. I’m from Philadelphia and I would love to give them a new home with love and care. I can not believe what I just read. Tears are coming down my face with just the thought of heartless women who do this to children when women like us can’t have children. There are millions of women who would love a child to care for and take hone.

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