This next story is heart wrenching but is it an absolute case of poverty? The progressives will say that it is but I'm inclined to think that it's more about mental deficiency, lower-tier values and impoverished circumstances. How can one explain away ceiling high refuse in an apartment where adjacent neighbors do not live this way? The mother of this unfortunate infant (and her relatives) all possessed excuses for this aberration with the grandfather going as far as to commend his daughter for her maternal abilities. No one is discounting poverty and the difficult living conditions in many urban areas but when do we hold folks accountable for their actions when the poverty aspect is not the complete cause? This young woman's filthy living conditions appear to be self-imposed and ignorance is never determined to be a root cause. Let's check out the New York Daily News' take on this horror story:
Police arrest mom who kept 4-day-old baby in a shoebox
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BY KERRY BURKE, SCOTT SHIFREL and ALISON GENDAR
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITERS
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A 4-day-old baby was found in a shoebox in a Brooklyn apartment, cops say.
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Her crib was a shoebox. Her playmates were roaches.
Cops removed a 4-day-old baby from a filthy Brooklyn apartment after finding the girl tucked into a Timberland shoe box, police said.
The newborn's 19-year-old mother, Jenilla Vaughn, was arrested and charged with endangering the welfare of a minor.
"This morning she came outside with the baby in a shoebox in her arms. The police escorted her out. They were surrounding her. It's sad," said Joseph Coleman, 48, a super at the Vernon Avenue Houses on Marcus Garvey Blvd. in Bedford-Stuyvesant, where Vaughn lives.
"I've been complaining for over 10 years about the condition of that apartment. The garbage is 5 feet high," Coleman said.
"The baby should have never come home. Where was social services? Why didn't they check the house?"
Not far from the shoebox holding the infant, cops found a loaded .45-caliber Hi-Point semiautomatic pistol, ammunition and a small amount of cocaine, law enforcement sources said.
"The apartment was total hell - roaches, garbage everywhere," a law enforcement source said. "There was nothing around that looked like they were caring for this baby. No food. No nothings. Its only playmate was the roaches."
Vaughn's brother, Tarik Vaughn, 22, was charged with possession of the weapon.
The little girl was born Sept. 2 at Woodhull Hospital, police sources said. She was taken back to the hospital yesterday, where she guzzled three bottles of formula, a hospital source said.
The Administration for Children's Services, which has a long history of dealing with the Vaughn family, took the infant yesterday, police sources said.
A 15-year-old who lives at Vaughn's apartment was also taken into ACS care, authorities said.
"Jenilla loves that baby. No way she's going to endanger it," said Jenilla's father, Edward Vaughn, 65. He said the baby was going to be named either Elaine or Jamalla.
"She didn't have the baby in a shoebox. The baby was in a car seat. She's a good mother and I'm a proud grandfather. She's doing the best she can."
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