As doctors at Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta at Egleston treated his 2-month-old baby, a Walton County man was arrested on charges of aggravated battery and child cruelty, Monroe police said.
Just before 9 p.m. Saturday, police responded to a report of an unresponsive infant at a home in the 300 block of Mobley Circle in Monroe, authorities said.
At the time, Justin Lee Whited told them he woke up and the child was crying, according to a police report obtained by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. He said he asked his wife to go to the kitchen to get a bottle while he stayed in bed with the baby.
She went to the kitchen and got the bottle. When the wife returned to the bedroom, the child was “gasping and not breathing normal,” she told police. Eventually, the baby stopped breathing and 911 was called, she said.
Police ramped up their investigation after a physician at Clearview Regional Medical Center said the child had a broken collar bone, according to the report.
The baby’s father, Justin Lee Whited of Monroe, was arrested early Sunday after the child was flown from Clearview to Egleston. He was being held Friday in the Walton County Jail in lieu of $60,000 cash bond.
The wife was not arrested in connection with the incident, which Monroe police referred to the state Division of Family and Children’s Services.
An Egleston spokeswoman Friday said the hospital could not give out information on the infant’s condition.
