A 31-year-old Florida man was behind bars Friday after police said he threw his 4-month-old child over an 8-foot fence, stripped naked and fled on foot.
The man, later identified as Richard Harris, was eating dinner with his family Thursday night when he said he was going to take a walk with the baby, his wife told investigators.
When she came looking for the two, she walked outside just in time to see police tackle her naked husband in a nearby apartment complex parking lot.
The baby was found face down in the dirt a few minutes later, police said.
Neighbor Kevin Reaves could not believe what happened.
“He just came over to the side where my trailer is and threw the baby over the fence into my other neighbor’s yard,” Reaves said.
After that, for some reason, Harris took off all his clothes, Reaves said.
“My neighbor said when he saw (Harris), he was in a pair of shorts, and then all of a sudden, he saw him sitting on the trashcan and by then had had no clothes on,” he said. “I’m just more bewildered about what was going through his mind to make him do something like that.”
The child received lacerations to its body and extremities, but was not seriously injured, investigators said.
Harris was arrested by Longwood police and charged with cruelty toward a child/aggravated child abuse, battery on an officer or firefighter and resisting an officer with violence.
He is being held without bail at the Seminole County Jail.
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