Baton Rouge police arrested a 20-year-old man after a 6-month-old girl was admitted to a hospital with serious injuries and later placed in intensive care. Kilik Beasley was booked on a charge of second-degree cruelty to a juvenile after investigators responded to Our Lady of the Lake hospital.
Police said officers were first sent to the hospital after the infant was admitted with serious injuries. The case began on April 1, when the child's mother said she noticed faint bruises on the girl's face after Beasley dropped her off. When she asked about them, Beasley allegedly said the marks were probably from the child riding in a car with no air conditioning. The mother said the baby seemed sad and dazed and was not acting normally. She then saw red marks on the child's neck, bruises on her arms, legs and back, and a blood spot on one eye.
When the mother asked Beasley again, he reportedly tried to blame the injuries on his grandmother. The mother contacted the grandmother, who sent photos of the child taken while she was in her care. Those photos reportedly showed the girl smiling and with no bruising. The mother then took the child to Our Lady of the Lake Children's Hospital.
Doctors found discoloration to the face, right shoulder, left flank and right arm, along with a blood spot on the inner left eye. They also found lacerations to the child's liver and a right forearm fracture. The child was placed in the intensive care unit.
That sequence pushed the case from a family concern to a criminal investigation, and the arrest came with help from the Baton Rouge Police Department's VCAT team and members of the U.S. Marshals Middle Louisiana Fugitive Task Force. Police said Beasley's prior arrest history includes resisting an officer, illegal possession of a stolen firearm and second-degree battery. The arrest follows a hospital admission that left a baby with multiple serious injuries and, according to the mother, a child who was no longer behaving like herself.
The mother also told police the suspect had previously attacked her. Beasley remains charged with second-degree cruelty to a juvenile, and the case now turns on what investigators can prove about how the infant was hurt after April 1. In Baton Rouge, where families have recently been watching other child-safety and violence cases closely, the question is not whether the injuries were severe; it is whether prosecutors can tie them to one man and make that charge stick.
