Candidate for least favorite San Franciscan of 2012, Nneka Nash, 39, appeared in court today to face charges stemming from a bloody, newborn infant she left at a shelter in the Bayview around 2 a.m. last Wednesday. She's charged with felony willful cruelty to a child and misdemeanor failure to provide care to a child, and she's pleading not guilty, despite substantial evidence against her.
The two SFPD officers who saved the child's life, Matt Cloud and Steve Gritsch, have been hailed as heroes and written about frequently in the local press in the last week. Gritsch, a former EMT, performed CPR on the baby while Cloud sped them to the hospital.
At a news conference today, Bayview supervisor Malia Cohen praised the officers, saying, "It's very comforting to know that we've got first responders that are trained, that are smart, that are capable, and that are putting their lives on the line every day."
The child revived by the time they reached the hospital, and remains alive, despite having cocaine in his system. The five-bound baby had first been found, wrapped in a jacket, in the arms of a man near the Providence Church Shelter at Third and McKinnon. Nash allegedly handed the baby off to the man on the sidewalk after shelter employees refused to take the child and said they were calling 911. Police quickly found Nash nearby, and took her to the hospital before arresting her.
In court today, she was not exactly cooperative:
After entering the plea and being ordered by Judge Samuel Feng to stay away from the baby and to steer clear of a two-square-block area in the Bayview, Nash appeared defiant, saying to Feng, “I want to know when I’ll get out.”The judge told Nash to talk to her attorney from the public defender’s office, and she was taken back to county jail, where she remains in custody on $20,000 bail.
“This is just a sad situation,” Feng said.
Sad, indeed. Nash is being held in lieu of $20,000 bail.
