MIAMI – A Miami man is facing an aggravated child abuse charge after authorities said his 4-month-old son was brought to a local hospital with serious injuries after being in his care.
Recommended Videos
Antwan Major, 22, of Liberty City, is also facing a child neglect charge.
Police said Major had been caring for his son at his home for about 10 days until Tuesday. When it was time for the child’s mother to take the baby, she “noticed bruising under his left eye, noticed he could not hold weight in his left hand and cried continuously,” an arrest report states.
The report states she took her son to Homestead Hospital for treatment and medics later airlifted the child to Nicklaus Children’s Hospital with “fractured ribs and a brain bleed.”
According to police, Major had texted the child’s mother just before bringing him home, saying that the boy “fell, but he caught him on the side of the bed.”
He later told her the same thing in a controlled phone call, police said, saying the fall happened Saturday night but said he did not take the child to the hospital because he “did not show signs that he needed medical attention.”
“While at Nicklaus Children’s Hospital, the victim was seen by Child Protection Team nurse practitioner Amy Weeks, who determined that the victim’s injuries were at different healing stages, indicative of child abuse,” the report states. “Nurse practitioner Weeks deemed in her professional opinion that the injuries of the victim were the result of physical child abuse.”
The report goes on to state that nurses at the hospital told detectives that the baby “suffered multiple bilateral healing rib fractures, (a) healing right femur shaft fracture and (a) healing left proximal humerus buckle fracture.”
Police said they located Major at Northwest Seventh Avenue and 62nd Street and took him into custody Friday morning.
Authorities said he maintained that the child fell from the bed.
Major faced a Miami-Dade judge Friday afternoon, who ordered him held without bond.
He was being held in the Turner Guilford Knight Correctional Center as of Friday evening.