{"id":103289,"date":"2026-01-17T14:13:08","date_gmt":"2026-01-17T14:13:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/103289\/"},"modified":"2026-01-17T14:13:08","modified_gmt":"2026-01-17T14:13:08","slug":"girl-jumped-off-brooklyn-bridge-after-years-of-nyc-child-welfare-missteps-suit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/103289\/","title":{"rendered":"Girl jumped off Brooklyn Bridge after years of NYC child-welfare missteps: suit"},"content":{"rendered":"

The city ripped a delusional 13-year-old NYC girl from her family, then failed to monitor the troubled child as she repeatedly fled her foster homes \u2014 until she finally committed suicide by jumping off the Brooklyn Bridge.<\/a><\/p>\n

In a panicked bid to cover up its failures, the Administration for Children\u2019s Services then allegedly backdated records and reports after the girl\u2019s death, the traumatized family claimed in a heartbreaking lawsuit.<\/p>\n

\u201cACS killed Jade Smith,\u201d her mother Terri Nimmo, declared in legal papers.<\/p>\n

Jade Smith, 13, jumped to her death from the Brooklyn Bridge in January 2023 after a more than four month separation from her family at the hands of ACS, according to a lawsuit. Stefan Jeremiah for NY Post<\/p>\n

\u201cOver the course of ACS\u2019s 20-month assault on the Nimmo family, the Nimmos lost their home, their jobs, and their 13-year-old daughter. They will never recover.\u201d<\/p>\n

A year after Jade\u2019s stunning suicide in January 2023, a bumbling case worker made an unannounced visit to the family\u2019s Brooklyn home and obliviously asked if Jade was \u201cout for the moment,\u201d the 35-year-old mom said in the litigation.<\/p>\n

The mother \u201chad nightmares and panic attacks about this cruel interaction for weeks.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jade was \u201can extremely gifted, creative, passionate child\u201d and \u201cprolific artist, always drawing and painting,\u201d her family said in their Brooklyn Federal Court lawsuit against the city and several ACS employees.<\/p>\n

But she was plagued by severe mental health issues \u2014 including Post- Traumatic Stress Disorder, dissociative identity disorder, and depression that required multiple hospital stays from the time she was 9.<\/p>\n

She hallucinated a faceless \u201cblack figure\u201d following her at school, and woke screaming in the night, convinced she was covered in bugs, according to legal papers. By 12 years old, she\u2019d attempted suicide multiple times.<\/p>\n

One apparent delusion changed the course of the family\u2019s life. <\/p>\n

In July 2022, her oldest daughter told Nimmo someone entered her bedroom in the night and groped her breasts and buttocks, then eventually claimed her stepfather \u2014 whose job as an overnight security guard took him out of the home in the wee hours \u2014 was responsible, according to the lawsuit.<\/p>\n

The teen, who had a significant mental health history, ran away from her foster homes repeatedly, her family said in court papers. Luiz C. Ribeiro for NY Post<\/p>\n

The mom informed the girl\u2019s biological father and stepdad, noting the child said she had been dreaming about a boy she had a crush on when the alleged abuse occurred. <\/p>\n

But weeks later, Jade repeated the allegation to a friend, who told their parent. That parent called ACS.<\/p>\n

Caseworkers showed up the same day \u2014 launching the family into hell, they alleged.<\/p>\n

\u201cACS did not contact Jade\u2019s therapist, psychiatrist, friends, or neighbors. It did not review her medical history,\u201d the family said in the lawsuit. \u201cIt did not even attempt to confirm what medications she was prescribed nor what she discussed with her therapist at an appointment she attended after the alleged incident.\u201d<\/p>\n

Caseworkers ran to Brooklyn Family Court in September 2022, filed a neglect petition accusing stepfather Richard Nimmo of abusing Jade but failed to include the girls \u201cextensive\u201d mental health history \u201cnor any other salient facts,\u201d the family claimed. <\/p>\n

\u201cAnd thus began the systematic dismantling by ACS of every source of love, security, and comfort in Jade\u2019s young life.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jade was placed with a grandparent \u2014 who lived in a single room occupancy home and couldn\u2019t handle the increasingly unstable girl. She fled the home many times. <\/p>\n

After Jade\u2019s suicide, ACS allegedly back-dated its notes and stepped up its investigation of her family. Stefan Jeremiah for NY Post<\/p>\n

Meanwhile the family was broken up, with two siblings staying with the mom, but the stepdad ordered to stay away.<\/p>\n

The agency\u2019s records were \u201cfarcically inaccurate and incomplete,\u201d failed to mention the hallucinations or runaway attempts, while case workers \u201cdismissed\u201d Nimmo\u2019s concerns about her daughter\u2019s safety, the family alleged.<\/p>\n

The girl was placed in a different foster home. Nimmo last saw her daughter on Christmas Day, 2022.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs soon as Jade saw her mother, she ran into her arms and told her how much she loved her,\u201d according to the lawsuit.<\/p>\n

Two weeks later, on Jan. 15, Jade fled that foster home. The next day her \u201cbody was found in the East River,\u201d the suit said.<\/p>\n

The same day, ACS rushed \u201cback-dated case notes\u201d into their records and \u201cdramatically escalated its intrusions, seemingly desperate to somehow retroactively justify its actions in separating the family,\u201d Nimmo alleged. <\/p>\n

The agency then contacted Jade\u2019s longtime therapist for the first time, while case workers repeatedly questioned her surviving sibling\u2019s teachers and guidance counselor hunting for signs of neglect, the family claimed. <\/p>\n

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The belated probe of the Nimmos dragged on for more than a year, forcing the family to make it their \u201cfull-time job\u201d to respond to the agency\u2019s demands. <\/p>\n

\u201cNeither parent was able to sustain their employment. \u2026 Within months, the couple had lost not only their jobs but also their home. They moved into a shelter,\u201d according to the lawsuit.<\/p>\n

A family court judge cleared Jade\u2019s parents in February 2024 of any wrongdoing, calling the abuse allegations \u201cextremely difficult to believe\u201d and describing Nimmo as \u201cattentive as a parent could have been to Jade\u2019s considerable mental health needs.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThere will be a reckoning,\u201d said the family, which is seeking unspecified damages.<\/p>\n

ACS declined to comment on the litigation.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe safety and well-being of New York City\u2019s children and youth is our top priority. The loss of Jade Smith is a terrible tragedy. We offer our deepest condolences to the family,\u201d a spokesperson said in a statement.<\/p>\n

If you are struggling with suicidal thoughts or are experiencing a mental health crisis and live in New York City, you can call 1-888-NYC-WELL for free and confidential crisis counseling. If you live outside the five boroughs, you can dial the 24\/7 National Suicide Prevention hotline at 988 or go to\u00a0SuicidePreventionLifeline.org<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The city ripped a delusional 13-year-old NYC girl from her family, then failed to monitor the troubled child…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":103290,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[9096,3775,98,100,99,4207,2850,2441,57,9,24,63,340,58],"class_list":{"0":"post-103289","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-brooklyn","8":"tag-abuse","9":"tag-administration-for-childrens-services","10":"tag-brooklyn","11":"tag-brooklyn-headlines","12":"tag-brooklyn-news","13":"tag-children","14":"tag-lawsuits","15":"tag-mental-illness","16":"tag-metro","17":"tag-new-york","18":"tag-new-york-city","19":"tag-nyc","20":"tag-suicide","21":"tag-us-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103289","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=103289"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103289\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/103290"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=103289"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=103289"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=103289"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}