By Rachel Lacorte. .c The Associated Press
MIAMI (AP) - The blow of losing Elian Gonzalez may be felt the most by Marisleysis Gonzalez, the 21-year-old cousin who cared for him for the past five months like a mother.
In an anguished and haggard voice, Gonzalez described a chaotic scene early today as armed federal agents stormed into her home to take the 6-year-old boy and reunite him with his Cuban father.
``They said, `Give me the boy or we're going to shoot,''' she recounted while sitting on the patio of her Little Havana home, a few hours after the stench of pepper gas had spread throughout the neighborhood.
Gonzalez said she begged: ``Don't let the boy see this! I'll give you the boy! Please don't let the boy see the gun!''
Instead, she said, the armed agents in riot gear found the boy cowering in a closet in her parents' bedroom and took him from the arms of Donato Dalrymple, one of the fisherman who rescued Elian after his mother and 10 others died at sea last fall.
``He was screaming and crying, 'Don't take me!''' she said. ``I never thought they would do this to a kid. He's seen so much.''
On leave from her bank job, Gonzalez was constantly at Elian's side, escorting him to school or playfully carrying him on her back. She was also among the family's most prominent speakers, constantly lobbying against Elian's return to Fidel Castro's Cuba.
But the continuous pressure and media spotlight appeared to wear on her. Marisleysis was hospitalized at least four times since Elian was placed in her home after his Thanksgiving rescue.
In between two trips to the hospital, she traveled to Washington to testify in the Senate on the boy's behalf.
``I don't know how much more I can take,'' she told The Miami Herald in January.
As she recalled the raid, she burst into tears as she lifted a broken piece of Elian's bed: ``They trashed my room.''
Justice Department officials said the boy was unharmed and described him as calm and subdued in the hours after the raid. His cousin wondered how that could be and said she hoped to travel to Washington to visit him this weekend.
``How can this boy be OK when he had a gun to his head?'' she asked. ``I thought this was a country of freedom.'' Attorney General Janet Reno said the gun was not pointed at the boy and that agents had guns because officials had ``received information'' someone in the crowd or the home could be
armed.
Gonzalez said she had told Reno personally she didn't want the boy taken by force.
``She lied to this country and, to me, she doesn't have a heart,'' Gonzalez said.
Lawyers for the family had just been put on hold during telephone conversations with mediators attempting to persuade the family to hand the boy over to his father when agents broke in shortly after 5 a.m.
While the pounding went on, Dalrymple grabbed the boy from the arms of his uncle, who was on the couch, and sped to the bedroom.
In the bedroom, an agent in green riot gear and goggles and carrying an automatic rifle confronted holding the frightened child. Agents then took Elian out of Dalrymple's arms and took the boy away.
After the raid, Gonzalez staggered as she walked around her home. She wept repeatedly through the morning as she recalled the loss of Elian.
``If I am asleep and he wakes up, and he doesn't see me, he cries,'' she said.
AP-NY-04-22-00 1103EDT
Copyright 2000 The Associated Press. |