Father bites, bruises, and suffocates infant son

...and severely brain-damages him.

Quote :

A 26-year-old father is being held on $1 million bond after his 2-month-old son was rushed to the hospital unresponsive and suffering from a skull fracture, multiple bruises and bite marks.

Benjamin Koller was arrested on July 24 for investigation of child abuse resulting in serious bodily injury.

Koller and Jennifer Schmidt, who is the boy's mother, brought their infant son to Avista Hospital on July 21, Lafayette police Cmdr. Mark Battersby said.

...

"Jack had very red, swollen eyes, and bite marks on one leg and one arm," according to the arrest affidavit. "Photographs taken by Officer (John) Harris displayed a bruise on the top of the infant's head, bite marks on both arms and one leg, bruises above one of the eyes of the child, along with red, swollen eyes ... The medical professionals had spoken about a possible retinal detachment of the eyes of the child."

According to the affidavit, detectives interviewed Schmidt, who told them Koller had woken up around 4 a.m. on July 21 because Jack was rousing in his sleep.

Jack vomited and stopped breathing and Schmidt performed CPR and Jack started breathing again, Schmidt said.

"The breaths were very abnormal, ranging from gasping for air to slow, shallow breathing. [Koller] told [Schmidt] that Jack had looked like he was dead and so he bit him on the leg to try and get a reaction out of him to tell if he was OK," the affidavit said.

That's... not how you do that.

Quote :

Doctors told detectives that Jack had several injuries including bruises and bite marks. He had to have fluid drained off his brain and the prognosis from the doctors at Children's Hospital is that Jack has grave injuries and definite brain damage. He is not expected to survive. However, if he does, he is expected to be severely impaired and may not be able to talk, walk or feed himself, said Dr. Antonia Chiesa.

Quote :

"The damage to his brain is due to one or a combination of the following: lack of oxygen to the brain which is consistent with (Koller's) admission of suffocating Jack multiple times, unattended seizures and or trauma to the head, consistent with Jack's skull fracture," the affidavit said.

Chiesa added that Jack's overall condition is indicative of many injuries happening to him over a period of time.

Here's what the father says happened, and why it happened....

Quote :

One of the visits came after Koller was changing Jack and dropped him about two feet onto the wooden part of the changing table. According to the affidavit, Jack "didn't have any marks. Jack cried 'severely' for a little while ... but calmed down after about 10 minutes."

Koller said he and Schmidt didn't see any marks and thought Jack was fine.

However, during a second interview, Koller admitted that after dropping Jack, he had a "reaction and placed his hand over Jack's mouth to get him to stop crying -- to muffle the sound."

Koller then told the detective that he had "smothered" Jack other times in the past. Koller "said the 'smothering' incidents happened no more than three times, over the past few weeks," the affidavit said. Koller said, "the smothering incidents usually happened near the end of his work week when he was exhausted ... He said he is a lighter sleeper than (Schmidt) so he often gets up to attend to Jack. (Koller) said he normally works 30 to 40 hours a week, Monday through Thursday, 5 a.m to 2 p.m. and would wake up around 4 a.m."

"(Koller) said that there are moments when he is so sleep deprived, getting only three hours of sleep a night while working a 40 hour work week. He said he knew it sounded harsh, but sometimes he has a mentality of 'Shut up!' when dealing with Jack," the affidavit said. "(Koller) ... admitted that he got frustrated with Jack and said, 'Sure, everybody gets frustrated.'"

Koller also admitted to detectives that he would sometimes drop Jack and barely catch him. He said he grabbed Jack's legs "so hard" and whipped him back up when he fell, that he may have caused some injury.

Koller also told the detective that he was a product of an abusive relationship from his father and that he is afraid of turning into his father.

Too late, apparently.

Erm. Right. So another case of someone who had a child and had no idea what having a kid actually means and entails. Wonderful.

Jesus the poor boy... You know, why on earth would you try to stop a child from crying by being aggressive and hurting him? I can't say I've ever witnessed how an infant suffering from abuse behaves, but something tells me it's going to make them cry harder. O_o I mean, I've tried to relax an infant before through calm means and she was thoroughly unimpressed, I can only imagine through frustrated means.

Bah. This is awful. =[

This one agrees with Veran.
What we need is some sort of viral "chastity belt" that prevents a person from having children until they take some sort of test. Then, we give them the antidote.

I mean, you drive a car without a license, you go to jail. This is another human being here, and you're just allowed to pop it out when ever you want.

Eugenics works well in theory until you realize that making a good, failsafe test is impossible.

Dr. Professor Science wrote:

Eugenics works well in theory until you realize that making a good, failsafe test is impossible.

Assuming that reproduction control is possible, the "some sort of test" could be a series of qualifications (like job hours completed), passing parenting training courses, and psychological profiling. As in, are you a working contributing member of society? Do you have even the basic idea of how to raise and treat children? Are you relatively sane and functioning? Are you above 21? Then you can reproduce.

Yeah, I'm not sure what my opinion on teen moms is. Feel free to argue it with me. Maybe you'll help me formulate a definte one.

unskilled78 wrote:

This one agrees with Veran.
What we need is some sort of viral "chastity belt" that prevents a person from having children until they take some sort of test. Then, we give them the antidote.

Why prevent them from having sex? Not all sex is procreative, you know.

But in terms of preventing people from reproducing...the problem is you can't always accurately determine how a child is going to turn out or how good a home will be. There are abused children who are raised in "good" homes where the parents have a lot of money and are upstanding members of the community. Likewise, there are a lot of parents who are at somewhat of a disadvantage who nevertheless really love their kids and are good parents. I wouldn't really mind seeing having kids be a privilege. It's one of the biggest responsibilities you can take on, and people are put under scrutiny when they decide to adopt. But I find it very likely that any criteria to limit reproduction would be based on stereotypes and prejudice more than anything.

Stop with the eugenics pre-wank please. No one's a prefect parent, peroid. Some people are just more heartless and cruel than others and would do this kind of stuff to adults as well. Age is but a number to sociopaths.

Quadratus is right - preventing most people from having kids isn't the answer! Just this one. Preferably by killing him.

:headshot:

DarthDarthington wrote:

Quadratus is right - preventing most people from having kids isn't the answer! Just this one. Preferably by killing him.

:headshot:

Imagine telling someone they shouldn't have to right to be born because their father/mother was an absusive asshole who tormented them their entire childhood. I'm sure they'd be excited to hear that.

Quadratus wrote:

DarthDarthington wrote:

Quadratus is right - preventing most people from having kids isn't the answer! Just this one. Preferably by killing him.

:headshot:

Imagine telling someone they shouldn't have to right to be born because their father/mother was an absusive asshole who tormented them their entire childhood. I'm sure they'd be excited to hear that.

I wasn't necessarily saying they were right, just using it as a segue point for my awesome opinion.

DarthDarthington wrote:

Quadratus wrote:

DarthDarthington wrote:

Quadratus is right - preventing most people from having kids isn't the answer! Just this one. Preferably by killing him.

:headshot:

Imagine telling someone they shouldn't have to right to be born because their father/mother was an absusive asshole who tormented them their entire childhood. I'm sure they'd be excited to hear that.

I wasn't necessarily saying they were right, just using it as a segue point for my awesome opinion.

It was general retort to the eugenic wankers.

DeeDee wrote:

I wouldn't really mind seeing having kids be a privilege. It's one of the biggest responsibilities you can take on, and people are put under scrutiny when they decide to adopt. But I find it very likely that any criteria to limit reproduction would be based on stereotypes and prejudice more than anything.

DeeDee wrote:

Why prevent them from having sex? Not all sex is procreative, you know.

He said 'viral', as in, something in your blood prevents from you from successfully making kids. Sex is still possible, just not one that will result in children.

DeeDee wrote:

But in terms of preventing people from reproducing...the problem is you can't always accurately determine how a child is going to turn out or how good a home will be. There are abused children who are raised in "good" homes where the parents have a lot of money and are upstanding members of the community.

Think of it, as 'earning' a right to have a spawn of your own to torment. But such things should not happen (or, at least, reduce in number), if the system is in place, because parenting courses have to be extensive, difficult and require a lot of effort to pass. One of the key concepts will be to hammer in the point that a child is not a toy, and is not there for you to fulfill your own dreams; appreaciate them, because they are your kid, not because they are meeting your expectations.

DeeDee wrote:

Likewise, there are a lot of parents who are at somewhat of a disadvantage who nevertheless really love their kids and are good parents.

A steady taxable income could be a qualification, but that's not what I meant by "working contributing member of society". I mean, have you gotten a taste of it is like to work, to do taxes, etc.; do you have any idea what the fuck responsibility is?

5000 hours of work should be fair. Two years of working 9 to 5 should do nicely as introducton to adulthood.

Quadratus wrote:

Imagine telling someone they shouldn't have to right to be born because their father/mother was an absusive asshole who tormented them their entire childhood. I'm sure they'd be excited to hear that.

Can the appeals to emotion. When I said, 'pychological profiling', I didn't mean that assholes aren't allowed to reproduce (regardless of how much I want to say that, especially about dickwads who forget retail and waiter workers are human too), I mean, you pass psychological profiling unless you have a crippling mental illness that makes you a considerable threat to everyone and yourself, and can not be treated or controlled through medication.

Psy-4 wrote:

Quadratus wrote:

Imagine telling someone they shouldn't have to right to be born because their father/mother was an absusive asshole who tormented them their entire childhood. I'm sure they'd be excited to hear that.

Can the appeals to emotion. When I said, 'pychological profiling', I didn't mean that assholes aren't allowed to reproduce (regardless of how much I want to say that, especially about dickwads who forget retail and waiter workers are human too), I mean, you pass psychological profiling unless you have a crippling mental illness that makes you a considerable threat to everyone and yourself, and can not be treated or controlled through medication.

Nice to know my nephew isn't aloud to live because his mom has schizophrenia with commend voices.

It's not your place to judge who can and cannot give help bring another life into this world. You know also thought that the mentally ill shouldn't be aloud to have children? The Nazis. Yes, I went there. :heetlar:

Not all children born to the serverly mentally disabled parents live them, more than often they end up in foster care (which is worst) or in the care of a relative.

Dr. Professor Science wrote:

Eugenics works well in theory until you realize that making a good, failsafe test is impossible.

I don't think Skillet was advocating eugenics. I think he was advocating all people take tests/have training to attain a license to be a parent. Eugenics is a different can of worms altogether.

Quadratus wrote:

Psy-4 wrote:

Quadratus wrote:

Imagine telling someone they shouldn't have the right to be born because their father/mother was an abusive asshole who tormented them their entire childhood. I'm sure they'd be excited to hear that.

Can the appeals to emotion. When I said, 'pychological profiling', I didn't mean that assholes aren't allowed to reproduce (regardless of how much I want to say that, especially about dickwads who forget retail and waiter workers are human too), I mean, you pass psychological profiling unless you have a crippling mental illness that makes you a considerable threat to everyone and yourself, and can not be treated or controlled through medication.

Nice to know my nephew isn't allowed to live because his mom has schizophrenia with commanding voices.

It's not your place to judge who can and cannot give help bring another life into this world. HITLER ATE SUGAR. Yes, I went there. :heetlar:

Not all children born to the severely mentally disabled parents live them, more than often they end up in foster care (which is worse [Eds. note: wat]) or in the care of a relative.

I find it hard to buy or even consider your string of logical fallacies (See here for the most glaringly obvious) when you can't even figure out how/be arsed to download a spell checker or double check your posts.

F PLEASE SEE ME AFTER CLASS

What is it with me an encountering butthurt idiots on the internet?

It might have something to do with you proposing insane theories and defending them as though you believe they're actually feasible and/or morally sound.

But Quadratus: typing fail on a large scale

Miss Prince wrote:

It might have something to do with you proposing insane theories and defending them as though you believe they're actually feasible and/or morally sound.

But Quadratus: typing fail on a large scale

Morally sound? No. Feasible? Well, existence of a temporary artificial sterility was assumed for exist for the sake of theory, and training, testing and practice for parenthood would be no different from high-school, in fact, the classes can be held in high-schools after hours.

Also, belief that procreation should be an earned privilige, not a right, is not insane theory. [You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]

It would raise value and quality of parenting, and make everyone not in the know realise that raising another human is kind of a big deal.

Quadratus wrote:

Nice to know my nephew isn't allowed to live because his mom has schizophrenia with commanding voices.

Relax your anus. I was bouncing ideas about what would be the qualifications for parenting. So everything is debatable. For example, the psychological profiling could be there just to know who to keep extra tabs on, in case they decide that Cthulhu wants the house to go up in flames.

Verandering wrote:

You know, why on earth would you try to stop a child from crying by being aggressive and hurting him?

I don't know. Ask Melissa or Chainsawmidget. Also, I believe the person who brought it up was Vade, so, ask any one of them.



I'm very much with Psy and Unskilled on this one. I am aware it's hardly feasible, and probably incompatible with most countries' constitutions, but DEAR FLYING SPAGHETTI MONSTER do I wish there was some sort of required class on how not to fuck up your children.


Also, what Mafiosa said.

Mafiosa wrote:

I find it hard to buy or even consider your string of logical fallacies (See here for the most glaringly obvious) when you can't even figure out how/be arsed to download a spell checker or double check your posts.

F PLEASE SEE ME AFTER CLASS

You should've used this :eng99: smiley.