The family of the 23-month-old girl, who died after being beaten, had been under the supervision of child protection officials.
Jim Adams, Star Tribune
Friday, December 08, 2006
The Anoka County charges said Khadijo S. Ali, 25, told police that she watched Tuesday as her boyfriend slapped the toddler and then shook her violently while holding her by the cheeks on her face.
The girl was still walking when Ali went shopping and left her boyfriend to watch the girl and her four other children, including the couple's 4-month-old son.
But police found the girl dead a few hours later at about 8:15 p.m. at Ali's apartment in the 4600 block of NE. Tyler Street.
The coroner's autopsy found that the toddler might have survived 20 to 30 minutes after she was injured. It found that some of her ribs were freshly broken or healing, and that she suffered blunt-force internal injuries, including a torn liver, determined not to be accidental.
Ali was charged with second-degree manslaughter and the boyfriend, Ahmed F. Mohamed, 31, with second-degree murder in the death of Sahra M. Abu. Bail was set Friday at $700,000 for Mohamed and $200,000 for Ali.
Mohamed told police he didn't know how Sahra had been injured, but admitted it would have happened while she was in his care Tuesday.
According to the complaint, Ali told police that Sahra had walked in front of the TV, causing Mohamed to yell at the girl to come to him. When she did, he slapped her face, grabbed her first by the ribs and shook her hard, then grabbed her by the cheeks and again shook her violently.
Ali also told police that she previously had seen Mohamed hit her 3-year-old daughter and 5-year-old son, and also whip the boy with a phone cord.
Ali's family was placed in the subsidized apartment in August by Hennepin County social service officials who had an open child-protection case involving the family, said Anoka County Sheriff's Lt. Paul Sommer. He said his county's child-protection unit took over the case this week and that Ali's four other children were placed in protective custody.
Hennepin County officials said a juvenile court judge ruled in the past year that Ali and her children would be supervised by the Child Protective Services (CPS) unit. Her next hearing had been scheduled for next month.
The court petition for protective service noted that Ali reported losing custody of an older daughter, who was placed with Ali's mother. The petition also cited several reports of Ali using the illegal stimulant khat and hitting her children, all of which she denied.
However, CPS made a finding of physical abuse against Ali in June, after investigating a report that she hit her 4-year-old son with an open palm all over his upper body as they walked toward a Minneapolis homeless shelter. The boy fell to the sidewalk, crying and shaking.
A distant cousin of Ali, Abdikarim Hassan, said Ali emigrated from Somalia to Kenya and then to the United States in about 1999. "God knows what happened," he said. "If what the documents and police said is true, it is sad."
Jim Adams • 612-673-7658 • [email protected]
Source: Star Tribune, Dec 08, 2006