MIAMI-DADE COUNTY, Fla. – Police arrested a northwest Miami-Dade man just after midnight Wednesday after they said he attacked his pregnant girlfriend the day prior using multiple chemicals and his own fists, sending her to the emergency room.
According to an arrest report, Ira Toomer attacked his girlfriend — whom he knew to be five weeks pregnant — at their apartment on Northwest 97th Street in the county’s West Little River neighborhood just after 12:30 p.m. Tuesday as the two argued about infidelity.
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During the argument, the “enraged” 53-year-old “armed himself with a can of bug spray” and used the repellent on the woman’s face, police said.
Authorities said it would not be the only chemical Toomer would wield as a weapon; they said he then grabbed a bottle of bleach and poured it on the woman’s face.
Toomer then grabbed a pocket knife, put it to the victim’s neck, threatening to “kill her,” then grabbed her by her hair and “punched her several times on her face as he mounted her,” police wrote.
The woman called police and Toomer stopped the attack and fled, the report states.
“The victim sustained visible bruising to her face, an abrasion to the left side of her upper chest and upper back, and complained of irritation to her eyes, nose and throat from the bleach and bug spray,” the investigating officer wrote. “(Miami-Dade Fire Rescue) responded, treated, and transported the victim to a local emergency room for further evaluation, due to her pregnancy.”
Police later located Toomer, who complained about breathing difficulties from inhaling the bleach he used on his girlfriend, the report states.
Medics treated him at the scene, police said, but he continued complaining and was taken to Jackson Memorial Hospital for additional care.
Miami-Dade police officers later took him to the Turner Guilford Knight Correctional Center, where he was being held as of Wednesday evening on charges of aggravated battery on a pregnant victim with a deadly weapon and aggravated assault with a deadly weapon.
A judge gave him a $10,000 bond after he appeared in court Wednesday.