Two 1-year-old girls drowned in a backyard swimming pool at a day care facility in San Jose, California, on Monday.
“This is the type of call that’s the worst that a parent can receive,” San Jose police spokesperson Steven Aponte told reporters Tuesday.
Aponte said police and the fire department were called to the scene in San Jose’s Almaden neighborhood for a welfare check just after 9 a.m. Monday. They were responding to a report that three children had fallen into the pool. Two of the children were in severe medical distress.
All three were taken to the hospital, where the two girls were pronounced dead. The third child was cleared with non-life-threatening injuries.
Before the incident, the Happy Happy Home Daycare facility was cited six times by state inspectors since it was first licensed in 2021. In pre-licensing inspections, officials raised concerns about the potential for children to access the pool where the deaths occurred.
Investigators with the police homicide unit are leading the investigation. Aponte expects the investigation will last several months.
According to records of the California Department of Social Services Community Care Licensing Division, inspectors raised concerns about the gaps at both ends of the fence enclosing the pool during pre-licensing inspections in 2020 and 2021. A license was granted after another inspection in January 2021, when changes were made that satisfied the conditions for operation.
A facility evaluation report from January this year noted that the pool was fully fenced with a hard mesh material.
“The fence is least five feet high and is constructed so that the fence does not obscure the pool from view,” the report said. “The gate swings away from the pool, self-closes and has a self-latching device, located no more than six inches from the top of the gate.”
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, drowning is the leading cause of death for children ages 1 to 4 — and most of them happen in swimming pools.
Aponte said he could not yet release information about whether the owners of the day care center, Nina Fathizadeh and Shanin Shenas, are in custody.
It has not been determined whether staff members at the day care center will be charged. A representative said the Santa Clara County District Attorney’s Office is still reviewing the case.
State records show that Fathizadeh and Shenas first sought a state license to run the facility in 2020. The owners did not respond to requests for comment.
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The day care center had a capacity of eight children, and it could take care of up to four infants at a time. At an annual inspection in January, inspectors issued five citations. One was issued because five infants were under its care, exceeding its maximum capacity.
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