Mom And Uncle Fall On Baby During Fight - Baby Crushed To Death

[matcom]

<snip>

A 15-month-old Concord boy was crushed to death, apparently after his mother and her brother got into a fight and fell on top of him, authorities said Monday.

Ronald Whigman was fatally injured at about 8:30 p.m. Sunday at the Stoneridge apartment complex at 3750 Willow Pass Road, according to police and the Contra Costa County coroner's office.

The incident began when Ronald's mother began arguing with her brother, Michael Newton, 28, outside her apartment, said a resident of the complex who witnessed the incident but declined to be named.

The resident said she didn't know what the siblings were arguing about. The two began hitting each other, the witness said. During the altercation, two of their friends tried to break up the fight, she said. As that was going on, Ronald came out of the apartment.

"The baby got entangled in the middle of it, and we all jumped up and started screaming, "The baby! The baby!" the witness said Monday.

Police arrested Newton on suspicion of involuntary manslaughter, willful cruelty to a child and inflicting injury on a child. Newton was being held at Contra Costa County jail in Martinez in lieu of $185,000 bail.

The Chronicle is not naming Ronald's mother because she hasn't been arrested pending an ongoing investigation.

"The whole apartment complex is just devastated," the witness said. "Most of the people here couldn't go to work today."

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2006/09/26/BAG5NLCM1J1.DTL

[leftyladyfrommo]

1. That's awful - the news is just full of this kind of stuff.

It is so depressing.