Cops: Dad alone with son, 3, for 1st time before fatal jump

NEW YORK - 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 building on Sunday. The man then jumped to his death.

Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly said Monday that it was the first time Dmitriy Kanarikov had been allowed to take his 3-year-old son Kirill alone since the couple separated last year. According to CBS New York, Kelly said the couple had a history of “domestic turmoil,” but not abuse. He said Svetlana Bukharina had taken out an order of protection against her husband after threats had been made.

Police say the father had visitation rights but had previously been allowed to see his son only in "some sort of institutional setting." He picked his son up at 10 a.m. from a police precinct - a neutral site negotiated in advance by the parents - and was supposed to return him later that afternoon to his estranged wife, who had custody of the child.

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

A witness said the boy was wearing Christmas pajamas.

The motive behind the tragedy remained murky on Monday. Kelly said there was no note found, and investigators have no evidence Kanarikov ever threatened to harm his son. However, at one point, he had told his wife that "unless she signed over the house to him and some undisclosed property, he was going to take the child," Kelly said.  

Kanarikov and his wife married in 2009 and lived in Brooklyn, where there son was born a year later. They separated last year and the mother and son moved to New Jersey to stay with family and got the order of protection.

According to CBS New York, Bukharina’s brother answered the door there Monday morning.

“My sister doesn’t want to comment at the moment and we want to support her wishes,” Igor Bukharin said. “We’re here to support her.”

Bukharina posted a picture online of her son last week with the words: “My beautiful son. The biggest love of my life.”

CBS New York reports that the last time Kanarikov posted on Facebook was in September when he wrote: “I want to be the best dad and husband. Nothing is more important to me right now.”

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.

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.

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.