Philly Police arrest Tioga mother in baby’s fatal beating, release details on 2 fatal shootings

A Tioga woman has been charged with fatally beating her 5-month-old son, Philadelphia Police said Monday.

Police also released details in the fatal shooting of a 22-year-old woman who ended up crashing a minivan onto an East Germantown lawn, and the fatal shooting of a 19-year-old man in West Philadelphia.

“It was another busy weekend for us,” Homicide Police Capt. Jason Smith said at an afternoon news conference.

Nadirah Al-Kaabah, 35, admitted to police that she fatally beat her son, Nyeem Kitchen, Smith said. About 9:30 a.m. Saturday, officers found the baby unresponsive in a third-floor bedroom of the family’s home on the 1600 block of West Erie Avenue. The baby, who had bruises on his face and neck, was pronounced dead at the scene.

Al-Kaabah allegedly wielded a remote-control device and a musical toy to beat her baby, Smith said, adding that he believed a family member called 911. She was charged with murder, endangering the welfare of a child, and possession of an instrument of crime.

Al-Kaabah faces a preliminary hearing later this month. A spokesperson for the Defender Association of Philadelphia, which is listed as representing her, did not return a call for comment.

Smith said Al-Kaabah had 16 prior arrests. Court records show that she pleaded guilty to arson in November 2012 and was sentenced to 2½ to seven years in prison, followed by three years’ probation. A state prisons spokesperson said Monday that Al-Kaabah had been released in January 2015, then paroled. She was currently on probation in the arson case. Records also show that she was convicted of simple assault from arrests in 2002, 2005, and 2006.

Police on Monday also were investigating the fatal shooting of 22-year-old Acacia Nykira Byrd, who was found Sunday night in a crashed blue Honda Odyssey minivan that ended up on the lawn on a house on the 600 block of East Price Street in East Germantown.

Byrd was driving on the 5700 block of McMahon Street about 10:50 p.m. when gunfire erupted. She was able to drive around the corner to Price Street before the minivan crashed into a telephone pole, then ended up on the lawn, Smith said. A bullet struck her in the back of her head, killing her, Smith said. She was pronounced dead at the scene.

Byrd, of the 5000 block of Greene Street in Germantown, was a mother of two children and had no criminal history, Smith said.

Byrd had told her mother, with whom she lived, that she was going out Sunday night to get something to eat, Smith said.

Investigators recovered one 9mm fired cartridge casing on McMahon Street, and a live round near the minivan, Smith said. The minivan had three bullet holes on the driver’s side. Another vehicle, parked on McMahon, had been struck twice.

Police think the shooter fired from outside the minivan, Smith said. “A lot of things are still unclear at this point,” he said.

He added that two cell phones belonging to Byrd may reveal clues to who shot her.

Smith also said that detectives were investigating the Saturday night fatal shooting of 19-year-old Nasir Jackson outside a deli on the 500 block of South 52nd Street. Jackson was taken to Penn Presbyterian Medical Center, where he was pronounced dead that night.

Eleven 9mm fired cartridge casings were recovered at the scene, Smith said.

Police reported no arrests in the West Philadelphia and East Germantown shootings.