Dozens of officers swarmed Crocheron Park after reports of a lifeless baby. Photo / Supplied
Dozens of officers swarmed Crocheron Park after reports of a lifeless baby. Photo / Supplied
More than 20 emergency responders took hours to determine that a lifeless baby in a "Crawling Dead" shirt was a fake.
The horrifying news came in just as New York City was coming to life on a routine Tuesday morning: A jogger in a Queens park had spotted a lifelessbaby in the grass and called police.
Dozens of police officers quickly arrived to find a discoloured infant on its stomach in Crocheron Park.
It was lying next to a wall, raising the prospect that someone had thrown the infant over the wall and fled.
The authorities began releasing details — 3-month-old baby found, no heartbeat — and set up a crime scene as news crews arrived.
As the morning wore on, New Yorkers became collectively horrified that an innocent baby could be discarded like so much litter. But more than two hours after police arrived, there was another news development: The dead baby was actually a doll.
It was not until 10:45am — a full three hours after the emergency medical technicians first declared it a dead infant — that a team from the city's medical examiner's office made the doll determination, a delay that prompted a second round of outrage and story updates.
A photo made the rounds of the synthetic baby with a blue hue perhaps meant to simulate bruising, a lack of oxygen or decomposition. The doll wore a diaper and a T-shirt with the words "Crawling Dead," suggesting that the whole thing might have been a ghoulish prank.
While the city seemed to collectively exhale in relief, another question arose: How could dozens of responders mistake a doll, one that looked like a prop out of the "Walking Dead," for a real baby?
A lifelike doll was mistaken for a dead infant for several hours after being found in a Queens park. Photo / Deputy Commissioner Public Information via The New York Times
While city officials said on Tuesday they were still looking into the matter, the answer seemed to involve the responding paramedics, who were unable to detect a heartbeat and declared the baby dead at 7:45am.
That being established, they were apparently reluctant to disturb the supposed victim further and simply allowed crime scene investigators to begin carefully collecting evidence from the perimeter and work their way toward the doll.
When they finally reached the doll, investigators turned it over and noticed no bruising under the T-shirt. It was then that they read the words "Crawling Dead" and pronounced the baby a fake.
The police said they were looking for security camera video taken in the area, and contacting the 911 caller, to try to determine who left the doll and why.
A fire department spokesman said that the doll initially "appeared to be a baby with discoloration consistent with signs of prolonged death" and that its Bureau of Emergency Medical Services would "conduct a medical review of the incident."
"The community was really up in arms that somebody would have the gall to leave a baby in the park," said Jack Fried, president of the local 111th Precinct Community Council.
A strict adherence to protocol may have hobbled responders from immediately determining that it was a doll, he said.
"Any time a child is involved in any kind of crime, the police department goes crazy, so they all come running," Fried said. "Once it becomes major crime scene, you have so many departments and everyone gets blocked off."
