NY Times- A 2-year-old boy was thrown to his death from the balcony of a seventh-floor apartment in Queens on Tuesday night by a distraught woman who had been living with his family, the authorities said.The woman, whom the authorities identified as Xiao Aiu Cai, 53, had a confrontation with someone else in the apartment and — for unknown reasons — lashed out at the boy, grabbed him, ran onto the balcony and threw him from it about 8:35 p.m., the authorities said.
Richard A. Brown, the Queens district attorney, said at the scene that the woman had been fighting with her daughter just before she turned to the boy and threw him from the home.
He said that the woman had been on medication and was very depressed.
The woman was taken into custody and was expected to be charged with murder.
The boy, whose name was not released, landed on the sidewalk in front of the building, at 35-06 Leavitt Street, a condominium tower in Flushing, the police said. He was pronounced dead at New York Hospital Queens.
The woman was not related to the child, but she and her daughter had been living in the multi-bedroom apartment along with the boy and his parents, the police said.
The woman had a history of depression and had recently been under psychiatric care, the police said. They said she had no prior criminal record.
A neighbor across the street, Young Kim, 60, said she was at home when the boy was thrown and heard a woman screaming in Chinese and crying.
“She was screaming, ‘Somebody call 911,’ ” she said.
Another neighbor, Anna Zheng, 26, a cashier who lives across the street, said the building where the boy died was relatively new and was known to be very family-friendly.
She said she often saw many families with small children coming in and out of the building in the summer.
“It was fine over there,” she said. “I never heard anybody fighting. It’s so sad.”
Late Tuesday night, directly below the balcony, a pink slipper lay near a blue cap.
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