A mom was arrested after her 10-year-old son was found walking barefoot on a roof in Brooklyn, three doors down from their residence where they live in a cockroach-infested apartment with no food, prosecutors said.
The boy was found with burns on his feet on the roof of a two-story building on Park Place, near Eastern Parkway, in Brownsville, at about 11:30 a.m. on Wednesday, according to a criminal complaint. He had jumped down 30 feet from an adjacent rooftop, and had to be helped down to the ground by the FDNY, the complaint says.
His mom, Ramona McClendon, 39, admitted that she had not seen her son for four hours before he was discovered on the roof of the building near their home. She had been with her other son, 3, at the time, the complaint said.
The apartment where the three live had broken furniture, holes in the walls, no sheets on the bed where the boys sleep, no food except a half bag of cereal and was infested with cockroaches, according to the complaint.
Both children appeared hungry and dehydrated, police said.
McClendon was charged with endangering the welfare of a child, prosecutors said.
A spokesman with the city’s Administration for Children’s Services said the agency is “actively investigating” the allegations.
