Police have charged a Manhattan woman with murder after her one-year-old boy was found unconscious yesterday in the bathroom at 5 Boro Burger on 6th Avenue and 36th Street. The child, identified by police as Gavriel Ortiz-Fisher, was pronounced dead at Bellevue Hospital. His mother, 35-year-old Latisha Fisher, was arrested after witnesses said they saw her holding her hand over the baby's mouth and explaining, "I put my hand over his mouth to put him to sleep."
Fisher entered the restaurant shortly after 2 p.m. yesterday and proceeded directly to the bathroom with Gavriel. Workers became concerned after she did not emerge for some time, and they unlocked the door to find that the boy was foaming at the mouth and unresponsive. The Times reports that a restaurant worker tried to perform CPR on Gavriel, but Fisher blocked him.
"I would describe her as soulless," one police source tells the Daily News. “She put her hand over his mouth and smothered him.” The News has more:
Neighbors at Fisher’s Pitt St. apartment building described her as tumultuous with a violent
Neighbors at Fisher’s Pitt St. apartment building described her as tumultuous with a violent streak. One said loud music and the smell of weed would emanate from her flat. A few recalled an older child has been taken from Fisher and said she knifed a family member a number of years ago.
“I think she just went cuckoo on whoever was up there,” neighbor Carolyn Lawson, 47, said of the stabbing. “She needs help. It doesn’t make sense. I think she was on medication for whatever problem she had, but I’m assuming she wasn’t taking her meds.”
The city’s Administration for Children's Services would not say if the agency was involved with the family and didn’t comment on the possible removal of another kid.
Gavriel's father was not present at the restaurant; police informed him of the incident yesterday. Neighbors tell the Times the couple had been "having public fights" in recent months, but one neighbor insists Fisher was a doting mother. "She was crazy with that baby; she always took care of him,” the neighbor said. “It hurts."
