Primary caregiver dad charged with assaulting infant son (Simsbury, Connecticut)

Yet another short-tempered deadbeat father drafted to play primary caretaker dad--with predictably tragic results. This jerk apparently abused this baby bad enough to put him in cardiac arrest, almost killing him.

Dad is identified as CHRISTOPHER R. BERMAN. 

http://www.courant.com/community/simsbury/hc-simsbury-child-abuse-1107-20121106,0,7698609.story

Simsbury Father Charged With Injuring Infant Son

By DAVID OWENS, dowens@courant.com
The Hartford Courant
7:32 p.m. EST, November 6, 2012

ENFIELD — — A Simsbury father has been jailed on charges that he assaulted and seriously injured his infant son.

Christopher R. Berman, 29, was charged in connection with two incidents in which his son was injured. In the first, reported in July, he is suspected of squeezing his son so hard he caused his heart to stop, according to one of two arrest warrants.

In the second, which police say occurred in September, Berman acknowledged to police that in a moment of frustration over his son's crying, he broke his son's leg, according to a warrant drafted by Simsbury Det. Scott Sagan.

"I went over to [my son's] crib," Berman wrote in a police statement which was included in the warrant. "He was on his back crying. I tried picking him up from the crib and he wiggled out of my grasp and fell back into the crib. I remember growling out of anger and grabbing his right leg, above his ankle. I bent his leg forward toward his head and heard… a popping noise. I knew that I hurt him and he cried out in pain."

An examination later at Connecticut Children's Medical Center determined the boy suffered a fractured right tibia.

Sagan wrote that Berman also admitted to causing bruising on his son's body and that the injuries likely occurred when he squeezed his son out of frustration.

Berman, who is unemployed, became the child's primary caregiver after the child's mother took a job in Boston and spent much of the week there.

Berman, according to the warrant, told Sagan that he became increasingly frustrated with his son's crying and the stress he felt from having to care for him.

"I'm finding myself unable to handle all of this stress," he wrote in a statement to police. "At times when I'm holding [my son] I find myself holding too tightly and noticed that I left finger marks on him."

In an incident in July, the boy went into cardiac arrest and was revived by paramedics using an automatic external defibrillator. The boy had no pulse and was not breathing when the paramedics arrived.

Doctors and police could not determine why the boy went into cardiac arrest, but after other allegations of physical abuse came to light, suspected abuse may have brought on the episode, according to the warrants.

Berman was charged with first-degree reckless endangerment and risk of injury to a minor for the cardiac arrest incident in July.

He was charged with second-degree assault and risk of injury to a minor for the September incident where the infant's leg was broken.

Berman was arrested Friday in both cases and arraigned Monday in Superior Court in Enfield. He remains jailed, with bail set at $500,000. A judge also ordered that he have no contact with his son.