Dad charged with felony child abuse for severely injuring 4-month-old son (Providence, Rhode Island)

This case is like a composite of the standard abuser dad story. An unemployed deadbeat who is drafted into providing child care while Mom works. Well, for either reasons of nature or nurture, said deadbeat can't deal with the "frustration" of a crying baby, so he batters the child. And because these dads are inevitably strong young men, the damage is commensurate with their greater upper body strength. This poor 4-month-old ended up with fractured ribs and a brain bleed, and is now subject to seizures and on a respirator. The dad--in this case DEANTHONY ALLEN--more or less confesses to what he did. But you still have his enabler relatives who are in a state of denial. And Daddy sure took his own sweet time getting the baby to the hospital. That's typical too.

Yet another example of why moms need paid maternity leaves and deadbeat daddies need to get jobs and support their families. Are there good nurturing fathers who are more than capable of infant care? Sure. Do I think that most are? Um, not really. I think most virile young men are better suited to fixing cars or similar activities that better match their energy and strength. And as far as I'm concerned, that's just the politically incorrect, unvarnished truth.

http://www.projo.com/news/content/PAWTUCKET_BABY_11-17-10_C6KVV3P_v13.388f15b.html

Man charged with felony child abuse for injuring infant son

10:25 AM EST on Wednesday, November 17, 2010

By Amanda Milkovits
Journal Staff Writer

PROVIDENCE, R.I. — A young father is accused of severely injuring his four-month-old son because the baby wouldn’t stop crying.

Deanthony Allen, 18, listened silently in District Court, Providence, early Tuesday afternoon as Pawtucket Detective Capt. John Seebeck read a statement that he said Allen had given to detectives about how the baby ended up with fractured ribs, a brain bleed and a bruised face.

Johnnel Marks is one of Allen’s three children, two of whom he has with 21-year-old Stephanie Marks of Pawtucket. Allen was alone with Johnnel on Saturday and Sunday, while Marks was working at her job as a nurse’s attendant at a house in Tiverton.

The baby “was bugging out,” Seebeck read from Allen’s statement to detectives. “I grabbed his face and squeezed his chin. ... I squeezed him hard because I was frustrated because he wouldn’t stop crying.”

The baby was on a ventilator at Hasbro Children’s Hospital, Seebeck told the court. The baby had been having seizures, and his prognosis is “touch and go,” Hazel Marks, Johnnel’s grandmother, said later outside the courtroom.

Allen was charged with first-degree child abuse, a felony. Judge Elaine Bucci ordered him held on $25,000 with surety, which can be satisfied with $2,500 cash bail to the state, or $1,250 to a bail bondsman. Allen was on probation on a marijuana possession charge that had been filed.

Allen, an unemployed high school dropout, lives in the Park Holm housing projects in Newport with his great-grandmother. Allen called her when he found out he was being charged, but Channie Toney said she couldn’t afford his bail.

“I don’t believe he’d do this,” Toney said. “He loved the children too good.”

She said that Allen told her that Johnnel fell off the bed. Stephanie Marks said that Allen also told her the same story after he called her at her job early Sunday morning and said the baby wasn’t “acting right.”

Marks said that Allen called her a few more times that morning, and she urged him to take Johnnel to the hospital. By early Sunday afternoon, the baby was at the hospital and the doctors were calling the police about the baby’s injuries.

Marks said that Allen refused to talk to her or the rest of the family at the hospital. Her brother, John, said he punched Allen and had to be restrained by hospital security.

The state Department of Children, Youth and Families had placed a hold on Johnnel and his 17-month-old sister while the assault was being investigated, Marks said, preventing her from seeing her children. After the arraignment, Marks and her family were returning to Hasbro to see her son.

“Just hope for the best, and pray for him,” she said.