ONUMBA.COM – It’s the kind of tragedy that’s mind-numbingly hard to imagine.
How in the world could a father take his rage this far? It certainly hammers home the point that domestic fights between grown folks, which are terrible enough for all involved, should never, ever involve kids.
Just keep them out of it.
Sadly, it’s an advise that’s too late for little Jayden who was thrown into a ghastly saga that played out in a Columbus family last week. The 3-month old baby wasn’t just involved in a grown up fight; he perished in it.
And it wasn’t even an accident.
Rather, it was pure rage unleashed on an innocent baby by his father.
Quindell Sherman was involved in a fight with his girlfriend Sonia Mitchell outside of 1121 E. 16th Ave. in the Linden community on the Northeast side. It happened on Nov. 16th at about 9:45 p.m. after a melee quickly escalated to the cusp of a fatal tragedy.
“I’m going to take my (expletive) son,” said Sherman, about the child he had with Mitchell.
In the midst of the fracas, he took the child. But no one knew he was going to do the unthinkable.
After striking both Mitchell and the baby’s great-grandmother Carolynne Holmes, Sherman picked up the child and slammed him to the pavement, multiple times.
The baby’s great-grandmother quickly called 911 to report the incident.
“He threw him on the ground. He threw him out on the street. He threw him like he was throwing a piece of trash. He’s killed hi baby.”
That wasn’t even the end of Sherman’s rampage.
He then scooped up the baby from the floor and scooted off to a nearby trash bin where he dumped the child and hid inside the bin.
By this time, police had arrived. Officers searched the area and found both Sherman and the battered baby inside the trash bin.
The little boy was rushed to Nationwide Children’s Hospital, where he died at 10:39 p.m.
It was a chilling incident.
“The young man involved in the domestic dispute ended up grabbing the young child and during the course of the dispute, he threw the young child to the ground,” said Columbus police Det. James Day.
A horrified neighbor who witnessed the grisly incident recounted what she saw.
“When I looked around I saw him grab the baby, probably for the second time, and toss the baby on the pavers over there on the road,” said the neighbor.
“Head first and then dangle the baby with one arm in the air.”
Both Sherman and Mitchell are 20-years old. They met about a year ago.
The baby’s grandmother kind of saw this coming.
“He was very controlling,” she said, of Sherman, whose address was listed as 1503 Woodspath Lane on the East Side of Columbus.
On the night of the fight, “he flipped,” said Holmes, who recalled that things boiled over after the baby’s mother told him to leave the house, which he refused, then later insisted that he would leave as long as he took the baby with him.
In the end, he did neither, succeeding only in killing a precious child in a rampage that’s painful for all involved.
Sherman is facing murder charges.
Mgbatogu is a freelance writer and editor of Onumba.com based in Columbus. He can be reached by email at: Onumbamedia@yahoo.com
