At just 6-months old, Zuri Rose Camera has already been through a lot. Sadly, we don’t know exactly what happened since she’s unable to speak up for herself. And unfortunately, the adult who her mother trusted to watch after her when she was injured in November is not saying anything either. One morning, in mid-November, Zuri’s mom, Anari Ormond, dropped off her daughter at J&A Nursery in Newark, New Jersey — an everyday task that has become her routine before going to work. However, everything changed after she received a text from the owner in the middle of the day, asking her to contact her immediately.
It was a message that would make any parent’s stomach turn over several times. Ormond immediately called the owner, and she later told PEOPLE that they told her Zuri had been left “unattended around a 2-year-old boy.” “She said in that time period of being unattended the boy ‘bit Zuri 3 times in the stomach,’” Ormond said. Just seconds after hanging up the phone, the mom clocked out and rushed off to check on her injured child. After a 17-minute drive that must have felt as though it was an eternity, Ormond — a preschool teacher by trade and recent graduate of Howard University — was met at the door and given a very different story about what happened to her little girl.
“[The owner] began a story saying she went upstairs to get Neosporin and fell down the steps while holding my daughter and she was severely bruised,” the frustrated mother reported.
After pushing her way past the owner, Ormond went to find her baby. Her heart broke after she saw little Zuri’s face “red, bruised, swollen and scratched.” The infant also had scratches “on her right foot and hand.”
“I was shocked and heartbroken,” Ormond told PEOPLE. “She was just sitting there. She wasn’t laughing or smiling.”
The two quickly left the daycare, and Ormond rushed her to St. Barnabas Hospital for medical attention.
“We went straight to the hospital. They did a CT scan of her head immediately just to make sure there was no head trauma. There was no internal bleeding,” she said.
According to Ormond, the doctor told her that while nothing was showing up on the X-ray of her child’s leg, the baby’s bones were so tiny that they might not be able to see fractures.
“I felt so weak knowing that my baby is so helpless and couldn’t defend herself nor tell me what even happened. I’ve been feeling so defeated. I thought I was doing the best thing for her.”
Ormond did not hesitate; the mom drove straight to the police station from the hospital to report the incident. It was clear that she wasn’t being given a clear explanation as to what happened to her daughter, and there were still other kids at the nursery being cared for.
After meeting with the police, she took to social media and posted photos of her little girl on Instagram. Unfortunately, that approach appears to have been more effective so far as getting justice for little Zuri.
The New Jersey Department of Children and Families recently released a statement to ABC7NY, stating:
“Our records do not show an operating license or registration for J&A Nursery in Newark. Please note that Family Child Care Homes are permitted to operate in New Jersey, without a license, if they are caring for five or fewer unrelated children. However, if programs wish to receive federal subsidies they’re required to voluntarily register with DCF and comply with applicable regulations. Providing care for more than five unrelated children requires a childcare center license, and operating without such a license may subject the operator to prosecution.”
A day later, Ormond posted a screengrab of a message noting that the daycare had been closed down, and the owner was due in court.
On November 21, CBS New York reported that officials in Newark shut down the unlicensed nursery a week before the seven code violations were discovered.
According to NJ.com, municipal court records, the city of Newark has issued citations for failure to obtain a license, failure to obtain a certificate of occupancy, nuisances, and failure to provide adequate doors for an exit, to operator Lisa Muhammad. It looks like if Muhammad had more than five infants under her care, she was required to have the proper license. Her “nursery” was no more than a set of cribs and a play area in the basement of her home.
Muhammad was scheduled to be arraigned in municipal court, but the matter was pushed back until December 19 after she asked for a court-appointed attorney. In the meantime, Muhammad is still under investigation by the local prosecutor’s office for Zuri’s incident, and Ormond is pushing that the city files criminal charges against the owner.
Here is a news report about this story.
Source: Ron Project
