9-year-old Bronx boy fights for his life after being thrown off of building roof
Investigators suspect 17-year-old neighbor, Casmine Aska
dragged the child to the roof of the building, where he threw him over the ledge, the sources said.
A 9-year-old boy was clinging to life after a callous teen neighbor chucked him off the roof of their five-story Bronx apartment building, cops said Saturday.
The young boy, Freddy Martin, cried for his mother as soon as he landed on the cold concrete sidewalk in front of the Nelson Ave. building in Morris Heights about 8:30 p.m. Friday, neighbors said.
“Mommy! Mommy!” the bloodied child wailed as he lay on the ground, unable to move.
Emergency workers initially suspected the critically injured boy took a fall from the fire escape outside his third-floor apartment — until he told a cop that he was the victim of a crime, police sources said.
The little boy told the cop during an ambulance ride to New York Presbyterian-Columbia Medical Center in upper Manhattan that a neighbor tossed him off the roof, the sources said.
“The kid told a cop, when they were going to the hospital, that he was thrown from the roof,” a source said. “The boy named the suspect.”
Freddy, before he lost consciousness, told the cop that 17-year-old Casmine Aska cast him over the ledge of the brick walk-up.
Investigators soon learned that the teen brute, who lived on the fourth floor, grabbed the child from his apartment and dragged him up to the roof, sources and witnesses said.
“(Freddy) was screaming,” said one neighbor, who ran outside her first-floor pad when she heard a “commotion.”
“He was saying, ‘Stop!’” said the neighbor, who did not want to give her name.
She said echos of “laughing and hooting” sounded like a group of kids horsing around in the hallway. But when she peeked up the stairwell, she only saw two youths.
Dismissing the rowdiness as part of the typical child’s play that occurs on the roof, the neighbor went back to her apartment.
“That door (to the roof) is always open,” said Wanda Simonetti. “It’s no good. It’s a big problem. People have complained to the super, but nothing happens.”
But the shenanigans ended when Aska allegedly threw the boy off the roof.
A 9-year-old boy was fighting for his life after a teen neighbor tossed him off the roof of their 5-floor Bronx apartment building, cop sources said Saturday.
Investigators suspect the young boy, Freddy Martin, was in his Nelson Ave. apartment in Morris Heights when his 17-year-old neighbor, Casmine Aska, grabbed him about 8:30 p.m. Friday, sources said.
The teenage brute then dragged the child to the roof of the building, where he threw him over the ledge, the sources said.
Emergency responders initially thought Freddy took a fall from his third-story apartment, but the child told a cop on the way to New York Presbyterian-Columbia Medical Center that he was the victim of a crime, sources said.
“The kid told a cop, when they were going to the hospital, that he was thrown from the roof,” a source said.
The critically injured child then named Aska as his attacker before he lost consciousness, the source said.
Little Freddy remained on life support on Saturday.
Aska — who law enforcement sources said has four prior arrests that include collars for robbery, assault and harassment — took shelter in another neighbor’s home after he threw the boy from the roof.
But he was soon grabbed by police when he tried to leave the building with his mother and brother, sources said.
Aska was taken to the 46th Precinct stationhouse in University Heights, where he told detectives several different versions of what happened.
Cops didn’t buy any of the bogus stories and booked him on an attempted murder rap. Aska was waiting to be arraigned on Saturday.
http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/bronx/bronx-boy-9-thrown-building-roof-article-1.1253865
Lee in the Mountains 