Copyright © 2020 Albuquerque Journal
An Albuquerque mother is in jail after police say she abused her baby late last year, resulting in a brain bleed that left the 3-month-old girl blind.
Chastity Carson, 34, was booked into the Metropolitan Detention Center on Thursday night on a charge of child abuse resulting in great bodily harm.
Carson told police the baby fell and hit her head, but a doctor said the injuries were more consistent with shaken baby syndrome.
Michael Patrick, a spokesman for the 2nd Judicial District Attorney’s Office, said the office received a petition from the New Mexico Children, Youth and Families Department to pursue charges against the mother. The court document says that after state social workers initiated a safety plan, Carson violated it by requesting to be alone with the baby.
A CYFD spokesman declined to comment on the case or give any details.
Patrick said prosecutors will file a motion to detain Carson until trial.
According to a criminal complaint filed in Metropolitan Court:
Officers were called to University of New Mexico Hospital around 4:30 a.m. Dec. 16 for a baby who was seizing and unresponsive. Carson told a detective she accidentally knocked the baby off a couch and onto a wooden floor on Dec. 11. Carson said the baby acted normal at first but her condition worsened over the following days, starting with nonstop crying and progressing to her leg twitching and a high fever.
Doctors found “abusive head trauma” such as that caused by violent shaking “with or without head impact” and said the injuries were not consistent with a “short fall as described.”
A doctor told police the baby would’ve been vomiting and lethargic “within minutes” of the injury and that she is “neurologically devastated.”
“She will not lead a normal life, and she is blind. She eventually will need a feeding tube,” the complaint says.
The baby was readmitted to the hospital on Feb. 3, “again for a brain bleed” and had to undergo surgery to relieve the pressure. Doctors told police the bleed was a result of the initial injury compounded with a medication the baby was given.
David Navarro, Carson’s boyfriend and the baby’s father, said it has been “a living nightmare.”
“I’ve been with her for eight years; we have been waiting for this baby. We had three miscarriages … (the baby) changed our lives. There’s no way Chastity would do this kind of thing,” Navarro told the Journal on Friday. “The baby fell; this was an accident.”
Navarro said CYFD took the baby away in January and placed her in his sister’s custody. He said he and Carson have been allowed supervised one-hour visits, four times a week. Navarro said the family is trying to get a second doctor’s opinion because they believe the injuries were the result of a short fall.
Navarro said the baby is no longer in the hospital. He said the couple have been taking parenting classes, going to therapy and doing “anything and everything we can to get our baby back.”
“It’s horrible. I just can’t believe it’s gone to where it’s going right now. It’s just not right,” he said. “CYFD it supposed to help families and reunite. They’re just tearing us apart on the word of one doctor.”
