OPA-LOCKA, Fla. – Rashid Bryant was 22 months old when he died in 2020 in Opa-locka.
He was in foster care until the Florida Department of Children and Families reunited him with his mother, Jabora Deris, in February. By Nov. 6, Rashid was dead.
Rashid was dead shortly before 10:30 a.m., but no one called 911 until 11:51 a.m., records show.
”The mother panicked and did not know what [to] do. The mother did not want the other children in the home to know what was going on,” a DCF employee wrote.
The autopsy report revealed Rashid’s injuries included “old and recent skull fractures and a healing fracture of the femur and ribs.”
In June 2020, a DCF case manager instructed Deris to take Rashid to the hospital so he would receive treatment for a leg injury. There weren’t X-Rays and the broken bone went untreated.
Deris had several stories about what happened to Rashid’s femur. She also told investigators he had suffered two seizures in one month.
Detectives confiscated her phone. Records show Deris sent an incriminating text message to her sister on May 22, 2020, saying she had “beat Rashid’s a--.”
Deris and Rashid’s father, Christopher Bryant, are facing charges of manslaughter and aggravated child abuse. Their next hearing is in June.