Father throws son, himself off NYC high

The body of Dmitriy Kanarikov, 35, is removed from 425 W. 59th Street on Dec. 22 in New York City. / David Torres, AP

NEW YORK (AP) - New York City police say a father was alone with his son for the first time since breaking up with his wife when he threw the toddler off the roof of a Manhattan high-rise Sunday. He then jumped to his death.

Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly said Monday that Dmitriy Kanarikov was supposed to turn his 3-year-old son Kirill over to his estranged wife at a police precinct Sunday afternoon. The boy's mother had custody of the child and the father had visitation rights, authorities said.

Instead, police say Kanarikov threw his toddler off the roof of an Upper West Side building and then jumped.

Officers responding to an emergency call reporting two jumpers around noon Sunday found Kanarikov, 35, of Brooklyn, and the boy on the lower rooftops of two separate nearby buildings.

Luis Ortiz told the New York Post that he was at the hospital when paramedics rushed the boy there and that they were pumping his chest and working on him.

'You could tell he was slipping away. They said the father was up there, but they didn't bring anyone else in. It was just heartbreaking. I have two kids of my own. They tried to do the best they could,' Ortiz told the newspaper.

Ortiz told the New York Daily News that the tot was dressed in Christmas pajamas.

Authorities said the father did not live in the building listed as South Park Tower, which is a short distance away from Columbus Circle and Lincoln Center.

Police investigating the deaths left the building in the mid-afternoon to photograph a gray Lexus RX350 parked nearby.

It's the second time this year that a parent and child have been involved in a fatal plunge from a New York apartment building.

In March, a woman clutching her baby son in her arms plunged eight stories out of a Harlem apartment window to her death, but the 10-month-old survived. Authorities found a suicide note in her home.

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