“My baby just got hit. My child’s father hit him in the head,” the baby’s mother told 911 operators, adding that the baby’s father also punched her in the head. “I need my son to get checked out.”
The suspect is believed to be a male in his late 20s, according to police dispatch records. Dayton Police officials declined to offer further details about the case later Wednesday, including any arrest information.
Dispatch records show that officers responded to a home in the 200 block of Boyer around 12:50 a.m., but cleared the scene within 20 minutes, possibly because they were not able to locate the 911 caller.
Around 6 a.m., police responded to Dayton Children’s Hospital after receiving a call from a social worker that the 3-week-old was being admitted to the hospital with a skull fracture.
Child abuse rates locally are higher than the national average, according to Libby Nicholson, program director at Care House, an advocacy center that works on child abuse issues.
“The seriousness of the injuries from physical abuse are higher, by and large, than what we have seen in the past,” Nicholson said. “It could be triggered by the holidays, it could be triggered by the loss of jobs, it could be triggered by the incidence of heroin addiction in our community.”
Statistics from Dayton Children’s for 2013-15 show 87 children were admitted to the hospital’s emergency department, or died there, after critical injuries resulting from abuse.
Since 2011, Dayton Children’s has seen 12 children die of abuse. The hospital also reported seeing roughly double the rate of head injuries caused by abuse when compared with 73 other pediatric trauma centers.
NewsCenter 7 reporter Kate Bartley contributed to this report.
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