Two Roseville, California, individuals were arrested and charged with manslaughter after their 15-month-old daughter died from falling off the family's apartment building earlier this summer.
The suspects were both charged with two counts of second-degree manslaughter over the young girl's death. The criminal complaint noted that the woman at the apartment on Lexington Avenue North called police at around 2:00 p.m. on July 6 to report that the child had fallen from the balcony.
Parents Arrested After Daughter Falls Off Balcony
Official documents described the balcony as being at least two floors above and having vertical metal bars with gaps in between. There was also a sliding door that led to the balcony, which was left partially open, and had a large tear in the screen.
The woman's fiancé told law enforcement officials that the sliding door and screen had been broken for several months before the incident. At the time that officials were providing medical assistance to the young girl, they also noticed a second child crawling through the bars on the balcony and holding onto the outside, according to CBS News.
The complaint in the case notes that officers quickly yelled at the child to go back inside, and eventually, a woman came out to get them before going back into the apartment. The day after falling, the young girl was pronounced dead.
A child protection investigator conducted a follow-up interview, where the 30-year-old woman said that the child was watching TV as she was getting ready to take a shower. She said that the father was home and assumed that he would be staying for a while.
Previous Criminal Complaints
The suspects were arrested as Aisha Ali and Hanad Hassan Jama, who left for work as the woman was taking a shower. Following an investigation, police found that the apartment management had previously warned the couple about the danger of the balcony, Yahoo News reported.
A recorded phone call from August 2024 showed how a staff member told Jama that she had two small children hanging out of the window above the garage. In a separate recording from the month after, a criminal complaint noted that a staff member told Ali that a child was once again hanging out on the balcony.
Jama disputed statements made by the maintenance employee and the other resident, saying that the reports were not true. Additionally, he claimed that they requested to have the screen door fixed, but there were no records whatsoever, as per Fox9.
