King County prosecutors have charged an Auburn man with second-degree child assault-domestic violence for allegedly smothering his 7-week-old son Dec. 3 in an attempt to quiet the baby’s crying.
Andrew G. Tippins, 20, pleaded not guilty to the single charge at his arraignment Dec. 12 at the Norm Maleng Regional Justice Center in Kent.
Following the recommendation of prosecutors, a judge released Tippins on $30,000 bail. As a condition of release, Tippins must have no contact with his son and keep out of legal trouble.
Tippins’ next court appearance will be at 1 p.m. Thursday at the Justice Center before Presiding Judge Brian Gain.
“In this case, the defendant committed a very serious assault on his 7-week-old son, K.T., by smothering him in an attempt to quiet the baby’s crying,” prosecutors wrote in court papers.
“K.T. suffered bleeding in his brain and swelling to his face and eyes. Hopefully, K.T. will make a full recovery with no lasting effects from the assault.”
The baby’s parents brought him into Auburn Regional Medical Center’s emergency room about 7:30 p.m. Dec. 3, where doctors found two hemorrhages that his mother and father could not explain.
Later an ambulance brought both mother and baby to Mary Bridge Hospital in Tacoma for further testing and CPS started its referral. Doctors at Mary Bridge told detectives that the location of the hemorrhages in the baby’s brain combined, with the swollen face and blue lips were consistent with the smothering of an infant. His symptoms also disappeared within hours, which is also common in a smothering.
The baby’s mother told detectives that when she returned home from a job interview about 6:30 p.m. that day, she had seen nothing unusual in her son, who had been in the care of his father since about 3:30 p.m.
But 15 minutes later, when she went to feed the baby, still in Tippins’ arms, she said she had noticed his blue lips and swollen face. She and Tippins immediately called Tippins’ father and stepmother, who took them to ARMC.
Tippins first told detectives that a bottle of formula may have fallen and hit the baby and that he might have bounced the infant too hard on his knee.
Confronted with the medical evidence in a subsequent interview, however, Tippins said he believes he smothered his son while he was trying to console him after a bath and before his mother returned home. He told detectives that he had gotten frustrated because the baby would not stop crying.
“While holding KST to his chest,” the detective wrote in court papers, “Tippins placed his left hand on the back of KST’s head and held KST’s face tightly to his chest. Tippins estimated that he held him more tightly than he ever had before for approximately one minute. Tippins said that he scared himself once he realized what he had done.”
