Father charged with dragging newborn baby through broken glass

A man in Tennessee is facing charges after authorities say he threw a bottle at the mother of his child and then dragged the infant through the broken shards, leaving the baby with cuts.

Randle Maddox, 26, was charged with child abuse, domestic assault, aggravated assault without injury and aggravated child abuse.

Police reports seen by the local Covington Leader said that after the six-week-old woke at 4am crying, the mother asked Maddox to get him a bottle and Maddox became "upset". Maddox then allegedly threw a cup, attempting to throw it through an unpaned window but instead breaking glass.

Shards of glass were then said to have fallen on the bed with the crying newborn, the reports allege, and Maddox grabbed the child and dragged it across the glass to another side of the bed. According to the mother, Maddox jumped on the bed while the child was still on it.

She told authorities that he put his forehead against her and told her that he wished he "had a gun so I could kill you and then myself so [the infant] would have no one".

WREG reported that Maddox was arrested after the infant was taken to hospital for the cuts. The channel spoke with Maddox's parents who disputed the sheriff's version of events, saying instead that the mother had concocted the story to have Maddox arrested.

"That woman needs so much help," Maddox's mother told the channel, while his grandmother said that the child "was his life" and there was "[n]o way would he do that to my grandbaby."

Both reports said the Tennessee Department of Children's Services is now investigating the incident while Maddox is held at Tipton County Correctional Facility on $5,000 bail. The family told WREG they had not spoken with Maddox or seen the child since the arrest.