This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2013, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
Police in West Wendover, Nev., arrested a Utah mother after witnesses reported seeing her repeatedly slam her baby against the side of a car.
Sgt. David Wiskerchen said the incident allegedly occurred just before 7 p.m. Wednesday in the parking lot of a West Wendover business.
Responding to a 911 call of child abuse in progress, police learned the suspect, a 40-year-old woman from cross-border sister city Wendover, Utah, had fled the scene in her car.
Witnesses told police that the suspect had spotted a female acquaintance, who was preparing to leave the lot in her own vehicle. The suspect, with the baby in her arms and two other small children accompanying her, approached the acquaintance and began shouting.
The suspect, upset the woman would not talk to her, began to slam the baby against the closed driver's side window.
Bystanders approached the scene, telling the suspect to stop hurting the infant and that police were on the way. That is when the woman re-entered her own car and left.
However, police soon located her and arrested the woman without further incident. A blood-alcohol test found she was at nearly twice the legal limit, police said.
The baby was not reported to have been injured.
The mother, however, was booked into Elko County Jail on suspicion of child abuse, assault and driving while under the influence of alcohol.
The woman's children were in protective custody with the Nevada Division of Child and Family Services.
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