NEW HAVEN — A 41-year-old man was charged with risk of injury to a minor Saturday after leaving his niece with another woman so he could get high, police said.
The 4-year-old girl was reported missing by her mother, Shonika Allen early Saturday morning. She said she left her daughter Naomi with the girl’s uncle, Calvin Allen, Friday afternoon when she went to work at Yale-New Haven Hospital, according to police.
When she returned home from work late Friday night, Allen and the child were not there.
As police were searching for the child Saturday morning, her mother received a phone call from a co-worker at the hospital who said that Calvin Allen had just been admitted to the emergency department for substance detoxification, police said. The girl was not with him.
Allen told officers who responded to the hospital that he had left Naomi with a friend, but he could not remember where he had left her and did not have a phone number for the friend. The officers were able to get a description of the house and a possible street name from Allen, and then responded to Woolsey Street to continue searching.
At 18 Woolsey St., a woman answered the door but would not let officers inside, police said. An officer saw Naomi through the door behind the woman and called out her name. The girl ran down the stairs and out the door to her mother waiting outside with police.
The woman, who police identified as Jecenia Vincente, began to fight with the officers and was arrested and charged with interfering with police.
Police later determined that Allen had left Naomi with a friend and given the woman $20 to watch her. That woman had in turn left Naomi, along with her own two children, with Vincente.
Allen remains under guard at the hospital, police said.
Story by Kelly Glista, Hartford Courant