Dad who posted son's injuries on Facebook surrenders to police
A Point Breeze man accused of abusing his 11-month-old son reluctantly turned himself in to Allegheny County Sheriff's deputies Thursday evening, proclaiming his innocence and vowing to be reunited with his son.
“I'm innocent,” David Bryant, 24, said as deputies walked him to a car in handcuffs and shackles before taking him to the Allegheny County Jail. “Tell my son I'm coming home soon.”
Wilkinsburg police charged Bryant with endangering the welfare of a child, simple assault, theft and criminal mischief. His ex-girlfriend, Dalishia Salter, 22, of Wilkinsburg, who also faces charges, told police Bryant pushed a flat-screen TV off a bedroom dresser, striking their son.
A video Bryant took on his cellphone at Salter's Wilkinsburg duplex Sept. 13 shows the boy in a car seat on the front porch, his eyes purple and swollen, injuries he blamed on Salter. The video went viral when Bryant posted it on his Facebook page. As of Thursday evening, it had been viewed more than 3.1 million times.
Salter's lawyer, Blaine Jones, said the video distorts the incident.
“He had already broken into the house,” Jones said, alleging that he beat Salter. “It's in the aftermath that he takes a cellphone video and basically narrates it the way he wants it to look.”
Asked to respond, Wendy Williams, Bryant's attorney, said, “She did not call 911 or the medics. David did.”
Williams said Bryant walked from his house in Point Breeze to Salter's house because she sent him text messages that said: ‘Come and get your kid, I left him out by the trash.' ”
Prosecutors on Thursday charged Salter with aggravated assault, reckless endangerment, terroristic threats and lying to police. They initially charged her with endangering the welfare of a child. A judge moved her preliminary hearing to Oct. 23 at the request of prosecutors. She is free on $25,000 bond.
When police took the child to Children's Hospital in Lawrenceville, doctors found a tear in his mouth, a sign something was forced into it, a criminal complaint said.
“They also confirmed what we originally thought, that the child had suffered from multiple injuries over a period of time, because you could see various forms of healing on the child's face and head,” the complaint said.
Court records show Bryant had two outstanding warrants and Salter had a protection-from-abuse order against him at the time of the incident. Details of the warrants weren't available, but Williams said both were related to Salter, who is four months pregnant with another child, also Bryant's. In a petition seeking a protection-from-abuse order filed in May 2013, Salter said Bryant “threatened to kill me and anyone I was with.”
In April, a judge gave Salter full custody of the boy when Bryant failed to appear in court. The boy is in the custody of the county's Office of Children, Youth and Families, Williams said.
Adam Brandolph and Margaret Harding are staff writers for Trib Total Media. Reach Brandolph at 412-391-0927 or abrandolph@tribweb.com. Reach Harding at 412-380-8519 or mharding@tribweb.com.
