Man accused of shaking infant son charged with child assault in Pierce County court
A man accused of injuring his 1-month-old son while “bouncing” the infant to calm him has been charged with first-degree child assault.
Prosecutors charged the 38-year-old Wednesday. He’s scheduled to be arraigned later this month in Pierce County Superior Court.
Charging papers give this account of what happened:
The baby’s parents took him to Good Samaritan Hospital in Puyallup in July when he started having seizures.
Doctors found the infant had a brain bleed, and he was moved to Mary Bridge Children’s Hospital in Tacoma. The baby had retinal hemorrhages, a fractured humerus and other injuries.
Police spoke with the father, who “said that he would ‘bounce’ the victim,” the declaration for determination of probable cause said. “The defendant then demonstrated by showing a motion that would jar the victim up and down and side to side. The defendant said the victim would get upset, close his eyes, get red in the face and that he would jostle the victim to calm him down.”
The baby’s mother usually took the infant when the child was upset, she said, but she had been caring for other children at the time.
Child Protective Services had a video of the father “bouncing” the baby, the probable cause statement said. When asked about it, he allegedly said: “Clearly now, in retrospect, I got extremely over vigorous with that.”
He said he didn’t think the infant’s brain moved if he secured the base of his head.
“The defendant said that he thought it was fine as long as the victim looked happy,” the probable cause statement said. “He admitted he was completely wrong for shaking the victim.”
The father got worried when the infant appeared to hold his breath and when his arms went limp. That’s when the parents took him to the hospital.
