MIAMI-DADE COUNTY, Fla. – A man is facing a child abuse charge after police accused him of dropping a baby at a northwest Miami-Dade Walmart Monday afternoon.
Miami-Dade police announced the arrest of 31-year-old Patrick Abbott, who lives on the streets of Miami, on Tuesday morning.
According to an arrest report, just after 4 p.m., customers at the Walmart at 3200 NW 79th St., in the county’s Gladeview area, witnessed Abbott drop the 4-month-old baby girl to the ground and reported it to an off-duty Miami-Dade police officer who was working a detail at the store.
As the officer approached Abbott, she saw him drop the baby again, the report states.
While an officer wrote in Abbott’s arrest report that he dropped the baby “on the floor,” witness Andrian Ferguson said the incident happened in the store’s parking lot.
“I’ve experienced a lot of things in my life and that was the worst thing,” Ferguson said.
Noon report:
Abbott “then walked away from the victim only to then return to the victim and pick her up as bystanders began to scream and run to (her),” police wrote.
The officer then detained Abbott and got the baby. Medics took the little girl to Jackson Memorial Hospital for treatment.
Under police questioning, Abbott claimed he “only dropped the victim by accident once,” the report states.
But a Ferguson tells Local 10 News that’s not at all what happened.
“He dropped that baby four times. Horrible,” Ferguson said. “As I got to the lady, she said ‘help me,’ he was trying to stomp the baby, he dropped the baby and tried to stomp the baby.”
The report doesn’t state what relation, if any, Abbott had to the child.
Abbott bonded out of the Turner Guilford Knight Correctional Center Tuesday and had nothing to say to journalists assembled at the jail.
Editor’s note: This article has been updated to add an eyewitness account that clarifies that the incident happened outside the store.