The Slow Control smart baby bottle is displayed at CES Unveiled, the opening event for the media preview days at the 2015 Consumer Electronics Show, January 4, 2015 in Las Vegas, Nevada. The smart baby bottle holder helps parents track how much and how fast their baby is drinking, providing feedback on how to hold properly to prevent babies from swallowing air. 2015 International CES, the world's largest showcase for the latest in consumer electronics, runs on January 6-9, with media preview days on January 4 and 5. AFP PHOTO / ROBYN BECK (Photo by Robyn BECK / AFP) (Photo by ROBYN BECK/AFP via Getty Images)
A Florida mother was arrested last week after intentionally putting alcohol in her baby’s bottle earlier this month, causing the child to get sick.
Cecil Bryant, 28, of Pensacola was arrested on Friday, November 18, according to ABC affiliate station WEAR-TV, and later charged with aggravated child abuse, per an arrest report.
The outlet reports that on the evening of Tuesday, November 1, the child in question had a blood alcohol level of .142 after an investigator with the Department of Children and Family Services administered a test before advising law enforcement.
A witness told police that she was having a Halloween party the night before, when Bryant allegedly offered to make bottles for the children. After she fed her child that night and the following morning, the child reportedly fell asleep on and off and began vomiting.
The witness, described as a woman, told authorities that the bottle in question smelled like “the odor of watermelon alcohol.” She then tasted the contents of the bottle, and sure enough noted a taste of watermelon Smirnoff.
A surveillance camera recording in the woman’s living room reportedly shows Bryant picking up the baby bottle and returning from the kitchen “while shaking a liquid in the bottle as if to mix formula,” according to the police report.
Bryant then handed the bottle to the woman, who in turn began feeding it to the baby, per the outlet.
Investigators ultimately examined the bottle, and determined it “emulated a watermelon alcohol smell,” according to WEAR-TV.
Beforehand, the woman had taken the child to a nearby hospital, where nurses found the baby’s blood alcohol at a level of .142 – a level dangerously close to severe toxicity.
Meanwhile, WEAR-TV reports that investigators determined that Bryant “knowingly and willfully performed an intentional act that could reasonably be expected to cause great bodily harm or permanent disability/disfigurement to [the baby].”
Bryant has since been released from Escambia County Jail on a $7,500 bond.
Last month, The Shade Room reported on other Florida parents who endangered their children, after two “crazy” dads are facing attempted murder charges after reportedly shooting at each other in a Florida road rage incident, with each man bullets hitting the other’s young daughter amidst the fray, authorities say.
William Hale, 35, of Georgia, and local Frank Allison, 43, shot at one another’s vehicles with semi-automatic handguns during the high-speed “cat-and-mouse” chase back on October 8, and were only arrested after they pulled over and started fighting right there on the highway, according to the Nassau County Sheriff’s Office.
Hale’s 5-year-old daughter was shot in the leg and Allison’s 14-year-old daughter was shot in the back, leaving her with a collapsed lung, Nassau County Sheriff Bill Leeper confirmed during a Facebook press conference.
Bodycam footage taken from responding officer’s and obtained by News4Jax showed the aftermath of the incident.
