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Man accused of beating infant for crying
Stephanie Ingersoll
singersoll@theleafchronicle.com
CLARKSVILLE — A Clarksville man was arrested Saturday after a 7-month-old was taken to Tennova Hospital by EMS with multiple bruises and the infant's 4-year-old sibling told the crew their stepfather hit the baby for crying, according to an arrest warrant.
Lance Westgate was charged with aggravated child abuse and neglect.
According to his warrant, police went to Tennova and talked to EMS workers who said the 7-month-old had significant bruising from his nipple line to his nose. EMS reported the 4-year-old they also had transported told them Westgate hit the child five times because "he wouldn't stop crying."
A few hours earlier, on Friday night, Clarksville police responded to a hotel room for a fight in progress and made contact with the child's mother, Westgate and the children, according to the warrant.
When the mother was arrested at 7 p.m., the child was left in Westgate's care and at the time had no bruising, the warrant states.
The warrant does not identify the mother.
Officers were called back to the hotel for a welfare check on the children and found Westgate passed out in the room with the 7-month-old lying beside him, covered in blankets with no diaper, according to the warrant.
It states the infant was crying and had a "considerable amount of bruising on his upper body."
Westgate appeared to be intoxicated and very agitated, the warrant states.
Westgate would not give police a statement about the condition of the children in his care, according to the warrant.
Westgate, who gave a Providence Boulevard address, was booked into the Montgomery County Jail on $100,000 bond.
Reach Breaking News Reporter Stephanie Ingersoll at 245-0267 or on Twitter @StephLeaf.
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