Zymere Perkins, 6, was rushed to the hospital by his mother Monday afternoon and died a short time later. He was unconscious and covered in bruises, the New York Daily News reports.
Geraldine Perkins, Zymere's mother, took Zymere to Mount Sinai St. Luke's Hospital in a taxicab after emerging from the apartment building holding his limp body, according to witnesses, the Daily News reports. The young boy had multiple bruises on his head and all over his body. He later died at 2:41 p.m.
According to police, they got a call at around 2:20 p.m. Monday from Zymere's apartment on West 135th Street in Harlem, but by the time they arrived, his mother had already left to take him to the hospital.
Geraldine Perkins has been the subject of five child-abuse allegations since 2010, the Daily News reports. She told police that her boyfriend, Rysheim Smith, beat the little boy with a broken broomstick because he defecated in an ice bucket, although that story is still unclear, authorities said.
According to the Daily News, when both Perkins and Smith were questioned, Smith said it was Perkins who hurt Zymere for defecating in the bucket, and that when he returned home from getting food, he found Perkins giving Zymere CPR.
A resident of the building in which the child lived, Nicole Cucci, said, "If either of them had something to do with this, they should rot in hell."
An autopsy will be done by the city's medical examiner to determine Zymere's cause of death.
Read more at the New York Daily News.