A father has been arrested for allegedly dumping his 8-month-old son in the middle of a Florida intersection and then fatally running him over with his SUV, authorities said.
Justin Golden, 20, is accused of killing the baby boy in Jacksonville after getting into a fight with his female passenger at about 11 a.m. on Saturday 25th January, according to the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office.
“The driver stopped the vehicle at the intersection, opened the door, and placed the child on the ground,” the sheriff’s office said.
“The driver then began to leave the area and the vehicle struck the child.”
It wasn’t immediately clear if the female passenger was the boy’s mother.
However, horrified witnesses recalled seeing the distraught woman clutching the baby in the middle of the street in the aftermath.
“The kid was bleeding,” Markin Barnes, who runs a barbershop across the street, told News4Jax. “So we immediately asked if she needed help.” “Now that I’m finding out the details, it’s even worse,” he added in a separate interview with First Coast News. “Just the screaming, the people consoling her, you could tell it really was tragic.”
“Especially with a kid being that young,” Barnes continued. “It hits home. Anything dealing with the kids … we take very seriously.”
Golden, who allegedly fled the scene but was followed by a witness, was quickly arrested and charged with aggravated manslaughter and vehicular homicide over the horrific ordeal, authorities said.
He is currently being held in the Duval County jail.
The sheriff’s office said they are still investigating the horror.
