Court documents show that the Rochester woman accused of drowning her newborn son had previous contact with Child Protective Services.
According to documents linked to a CPS investigation, Markiya Mitchell, 25, first came into contact with CPS 19 months ago, following a domestic dispute with her boyfriend.
During that encounter, City Court documents show that Mitchell brandished a hammer while arguing with her boyfriend inside a home on Gardiner Avenue on April 13, 2016. Her boyfriend, a 26-year-old Rochester man, told police that Mitchell was preventing the couple's daughter from following him out the door when the child was "accidentally struck on her right forearm by the black grip hammer that Markiya Mitchell had in her hand."
CPS documents noted that the girl, who was 5 at the time, suffered a scratch on her arm. After the incident, the girl and her father went to live with another relative.
In the report, Mitchell told CPS workers that she kept the hammer nearby because her boyfriend could be violent and physically aggressive. In court documents, the boyfriend told police that Mitchell was intoxicated, had stopped taking her medication for psychosis and was "hearing voices in her heard."
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Following the April 2016 incident, Mitchell went for mental health and drug treatment and was charged with endangering the welfare of a child in connection with the incident. Once orders of protection ended, the couple had joint custody of their daughter.
At the end of October, Mitchell regained full custody of her daughter, who is now 7, according to her lawyer Liz Riley.
Following the misdemeanor charge, Mitchell was required to complete parenting classes within a year.