A baby who spent the night at her father’s Staten Island (NYC) home died after ingesting a mixture of fentanyl and cocaine, police announced yesterday.
Sakani Kamagate was just 16 months old when he died in February, and this week the medical examiner ruled his death a homicide.
The baby was being cared for by her father, Adam Kamagate, inside their home on Hamilton Ave. near Academy Place, St. George neighborhood, when she fell unconscious in bed, police said. No one has been criminally charged with the death as NYPD continues investigating.
The father called 911 at 4:07 a.m. on Feb. 20, and medics took the baby to Richmond University Medical Center, where he died later that day. A law enforcement source said that the infant was already in rigor mortis when he was taken to the hospital.
After an autopsy revealed that the infant died from ingesting drugs, it was not immediately clear who came into contact with them, the Daily News noted.
The baby’s father has 28 arrests and did three stints in state prison between 2003 and 2020, two for weapons possession and one for drugs. He was also a suspect in a Staten Island homicide in 2012 and a nonfatal shooting in 2014, police said.
Seven months after his release from prison in 2014, Kamagate was arrested in Binghamton (NY) with 283 packets of heroin on him, authorities said. He was convicted of attempted criminal sale of a controlled substance and sentenced to four years in prison. He was placed on probation in August 2019 until 2020.
In a similar case, after seven months of investigation, in December, the death of infant Ermias Taylor Santiago (2) was ruled a homicide due to a fentanyl overdose, also on Staten Island.
That month a coroner’s report determined that a 2-year-old girl had died from a methadone overdose at a shelter in Harlem (NYC). It was also announced that a 3-year-old baby girl had died in her foster home in The Bronx due to acute amphetamine intoxication.
If you are a victim or suspect someone is being abused, especially if they are minor or elderly:
- Call 911 or 1.888.NYCWELL(1.888.692.9355).
- Text “WELL” to 65173.
- Review information at https://nycwell.cityofnewyork.us/es/