Daycare is meant to be a child’s second home, where parents bestow the organization with the responsibility of their little children, while the parents hustle and make a mark on the world. But what if the toddler suffers from the negligence of such daycare owners? Felix Herrera Garcia, the husband of a daycare owner in the Bronx, Mexico saw the death of a toddler as a result of fentanyl exposure.
Fentanyl is an opioid drug in the synthetic form used as an anesthetic and a pain killer. It is 100 times more effective than morphine and 50 times more relieving than heroin as a painkiller says the DEA Gov official site.
In a saddening incident, a toddler being exposed to such harmful substances got the daycare owner’s husband arrested and the law authorities of Mexico gave the information to CBS New York, CNN, and The New York Post from where the People also draws references. An arrest was made, and a department representative from the New York Police Department told People that “Pursuant to an ongoing investigation, a POI was taken into custody in Mexico,”
The Post reports that “Herrera Garcia, the husband of Grei Mendez, was found by authorities while on a bus headed to Sinaloa,” Sources also told the Post that “US Service reportedly tracked Herrera Garcia to Texas after first receiving a tip about him allegedly hiding in Mexico.”
The charges have been imposed and the federal prosecutors say allegedly, “Mendez called Herrera Garcia twice back-to-back after finding several children unresponsive at the Divino Niño — or “Divine Child” — daycare on Morris Avenue in the Bronx on Sept. 15 before calling 911.” Herrera Garcia is assumed to be the co-conspirator and was captured on surveillance leaving the premises of the daycare just before the first bystanders came. CNN also reports that “in the surveillance footage, Herrera Garcia was allegedly holding plastic bags that investigators believed contained fentanyl after the children became unconscious.” A Twitter Post was shared by officials from NYPD department explaining the search warrant. This also attracted the Narcotics Bureau’s attention.
As part of an ongoing overdose fatality investigation in a Bronx daycare center on 9/15/23, a search warrant was conducted by @NYPDDetectives. A large quantity of Fentanyl, other narcotics, & drug paraphernalia was recovered in a trap floor in the play area at the daycare center. https://t.co/VycTB9hzpx pic.twitter.com/ZwaeukUHqS
— NYPD NEWS (@NYPDnews) September 21, 2023
The victims include a year-old Nicholas Feliz Dominici who died at this daycare by the name of Divino Nino and three other children who were immediately hospitalized, as per reports from People.
During an official Press Release that included NYPD Commissioner Edward Caban and NYPD Chief of Detectives Joseph Kenny Friday, New York City Mayor Eric Adams commented on the state of the children “appeared to have come in contact with an opioid that led to hospitalization for three of the children, and one child is DOA — died — from this interaction.”
CNN mentions, “Mendez, Carlisto Acevedo Brito, 41, and Renny Antonio Parra Paredes, 38, were arrested as part of the alleged conspiracy,” and a federal law enforcement officer from CNN mentioned “They and Herrera Garcia are believed to be mid-level drug distributors,” CNN also gives further insights reporting “Last week, a New York City grand jury voted to indict Mendez and Brito,”
People also reports in their exclusive that the couple was charged “in state court with murder, manslaughter, assault, endangering the welfare of a child, and criminal possession of a controlled substance, according to court documents. On Monday, Parra Paredes was charged in federal court in Manhattan with one count of conspiracy to distribute narcotics resulting in death.”