BABY BOY LOPEZ - 7 weeks - / Charged: Father, David Lopez - Dallas, TX

11:36 am on August 29, 2013

Dallas baby dies after 19-year-old father arrested on charges he shook him

By Liz Farmer, Dallas Morning News

A 7-week-old baby has died after his father was arrested on a charge of injury to a child.

David Lopez, 19, repeatedly denied harming his son before confessing to shaking him Sunday, according to police records. The baby suffered a brain injury and was on a ventilator at Medical City Children’s Hospital before he died about noon Wednesday.

Officers responded to a call shortly after 7 a.m. Sunday from Lopez’s apartment in the 14000 block of Maham Road near Spring Valley Road in North Dallas.

Lopez was watching the baby boy alone and initially told police that the infant was napping when he suddenly started showing symptoms of cardiac arrest. Lopez said he called his girlfriend, the baby’s mother, who was at the laundry down the street, according to an arrest warrant affidavit.

She said the infant, who she fed and put to sleep before leaving the home, was purple and not breathing when she arrived. She performed CPR until emergency workers transported the infant to the hospital.

During questioning, Lopez said he may have hit the baby on the head with his cell phone when he threw it onto the bed. But a detective informed him that such an action could not have caused the injuries he baby suffered.

Another detective then demonstrated shaking a baby using a doll and asked Lopez if he’d shaken his son, according to the affidavit. Lopez, who was crying, admitted he shook the baby and demonstrated with the doll how much force he used. It’s unclear why he shook the child.

Lopez remains in the Dallas County Jail on $500,000 bail.

http://crimeblog.dallasnews.com/2013/08/dallas-baby-dies-after-19-year-old-father-arrested-on-charges-he-shook-him.html/