A man high on marijuana has been charged with aggravated child abuse, after he admitted to throwing an 11-month old baby into the air across a room.
Christopher Finlayson, 24, of Cypress Gardens Road, in Winter Haven will make a first appearance before a judge today, after he was arrested earlier on Friday morning.
Investigators learned that the mother of the baby left Finlayson to care for the child on Thursday evening. When she returned around 7:00 p.m., the baby was unresponsive and Finlayson told her the child had hit its head on a play pen. The baby suffered a skull fracture, two broken writs and five fractured ribs.
Finlayson admitted to detectives he had smoked a “blunt and a half” of marijuana on Wednesday, had been up all night and that he “lost it” in a moment of rage and threw the baby across the room when he could not get the child to stop crying. He said he told the baby, “I’ll give you something to cry about,” before throwing the infant into the air toward the end of the bed causing the child to hit face first on the floor.
Finlayson also admitted to investigators that in the past, he has yelled at the baby in an attempt to “scare” the baby into being quiet. One year ago, he was arrested by Winter Haven Police for battery, criminal mischief and tampering and harassing a witness.
The baby is listed in stable condition and was transported to St. Joseph’s Hospital in Tampa for continued medical treatment.
