A distraught dad tossed his toddler off the roof of a 52-story apartment building on the Upper West Side on Sunday, then jumped himself — killing them both, law enforcement sources said.There are two obvious alternative lessons that judges could draw: (1) they could try to take kids away from parents who are apt to go nuts when their kid is taken away, or (2) they could give a predictable joint child custody deal to all parents, so there is less reason for anyone to get upset.
Dmitriy Kanarikov, 35, of Brooklyn was supposed to hand over his 4-year old son to his estranged wife at a Manhattan precinct amid a bitter custody dispute between the couple, sources said.
I would take the latter choice of course. Others might say that psychologists should evaluate crazy Russians.
A faithful reader also tells me that US Army Sgt. Jeffrey Chafin has lost his child custody case. His wife took their daughter to Scotland while he was fighting in Afghanistan, and I posted earlier this year about how he got the US Supreme Court to decide that he was entitled to a fair hearing. Well he got the hearing, but not his daughter.
I had been encouraged that the Supreme Court had been willing to stick for parental rights. But it was really just sticking up for some procedural technicalities, and it is letting the dad lose his daughter.
4 comments:
With a name like that, I wonder if there is more to this story along the lines of immigration/green-card issues.
No green card or marriage issues, He had a job in tech before marriage. Same employer as now.
He also had supervised visits for months, this was his first unsupervised visit.
The press and NYPD have demonized the guy which is easy to do when he is dead and left no note and all the court docs are sealed. Likely he deserves to be demonized simply for his final acts but the xwife did take a restraining order out on him that was not renewed (you pretty much get an automatic TRO in NY if you swear a complaint, if it is not renewed there is no evidence). and that plus supervised visits can push a dad over the edge.
That said, it doesnt excuse or even explain his final acts. Just so horrible, such a moment of weakness and horror.
Some people might conclude that the court should have foreseen this and issued tougher TROs and visitation supervision requirements. But maybe also he would have been a good father if he had a decent custody arrangement and not the extreme humiliation of TROs and supervisors.
NYC seems to have a pretty good track record with non-renewed TROs. This case is going to be reviewed but someone on the radio was saying that if there is a problem with the system its with ongoing TROs and not expired ones.
What they wont tell you is that the whole purpose of supervised visits is to provide a cooling off period, more than to actually diagnose someone. If you can diagnose an issue with someone during a supervised visit, that person is way way way off the reservation. It would show a staggering lack of impulse control, etc.
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