Police: Dad abducts 3-year-old daughter, then jumps off bridge (LaGrange, New York)

More freaking Daddy Drama. I'm just glad that dad ANDRE BRATHWAITE decided not to throw his 3-year-old daughter off the bridge first. Or jump with her. Sorry if it sounds harsh, but Daddy's suicide leap was pure narcissism. He just had to traumatize his 3-year-old daughter and her mother by ramping up the theater, didn't he? He just had to force his way into Mom's house first, abduct the child, and then do the whole adolescent police chase thing. I don't buy that Dad was depressed and this was "just" a suicide. If it had been just depression, he could have done himself in quietly without all the dangerous thrill-seeking attention-getting in the process. But that didn't happen, did it? Nope, this was just Daddy Drama that got out of hand.

 I wonder just what Daddy's custodial rights were in this situation. It seems to me that any rights were too much.

But as usual, the fathers rights folks are stumbling all over themselves defending this volatile nutcase as the true victim. Their solution: we should have subjected this child to MORE time with this crazy nitwit! Why? So Daddy would have had more opportunity to hurt or kill her too? Or, at best, abandon or endanger her during some other police standoff or suicide scene? Total idiocy. That's why we see skyrocketing numbers of children being killed or otherwise endangered after the father separates from the mother. Courts are letting the crazy abuser daddies have access to poor innocent little kids on demand.

http://www.poughkeepsiejournal.com/article/20110810/NEWS05/110810005/Police-Abducted-girl-safe-after-dad-jumps-from-bridge?odyssey=tab%7Cmostpopular%7Ctext%7CFRONTPAGE

Police: Abducted girl safe after dad jumps from bridge
8:58 AM, Aug. 10, 2011
Written by Emily Stewart

LAGRANGE — A reported custodial interference and child abduction turned into a police pursuit and ended when the suspect jumped from the Newburgh-Beacon bridge and landed on the railroad tracks below, state police said.

Troopers arrived at the victim’s home in the Town of LaGrange around 1 a.m. today and interviewed the woman, who said her ex-boyfriend, the father of her 3-year-old daughter, forced his way into her home and took the girl.

A notice was sent to all law enforcement agencies to be on the lookout for the suspect’s vehicle. Shortly after the notice was sent out, a Town of Fishkill patrol officer spotted the car. Troopers and town police tried to stop the car on Interstate 84 in Fishkill but as they approached, the the suspect drove away and a short pursuit began, state police said.

The driver, later identified as Andre Brathwaite, 23, of Newburgh, pulled his car over on the Newburgh-Beacon Bridge, got out of the car and jumped from the bridge. Brathwaite landed on the Metro-North Railroad tracks below, state police said in written release.

Police found the 3-year-old, unharmed, in Brathwaite’s car and returned her to her mother.

The Town of Fishkill police, Metropolitan Transportation Authority police and the Dutchess County Medical Examiner’s Office assisted state police in the investigation.

The incident delayed one train, the 12:08 a.m. from Grand Central Terminal to Poughkeepsie, by 13 minutes. Later trains operated on track two at a restricted speed with the permission of the sergeant on duty. The body was removed and the tracks were cleared at 4:39 a.m., said MTA spokeswoman Marjorie Anders.