Facebook
Fark
Digg
Reddit
Stumble
Friday, May 4, 2012 | 7:26 p.m.
Twenty-year-old Las Vegas resident Demar Barnes was arrested on charges of child abuse and neglect by Metro Police Thursday after officers discovered his two-year-old stepson, who had been under Barnes' care, covered with multiple burns.
Related story
A 2-year-old Las Vegas toddler suffered second- and third-degree burns to nearly 30 percent of his body, including his genitals, and had been deprived of professional medical care for eight days, according to a police report released Friday.
The boy’s stepfather, Demar Barnes, 20, Las Vegas, was arrested on Thursday and faces charges of child abuse with substantial bodily harm and child neglect with substantial bodily harm, Metro Police said. The boy had been left in Barnes’ care by his mother, 18-year-old Dialasia Williamson, who had been on a work trip to New York, police said.
Williamson left for New York on April 28 for work and returned Wednesday to Las Vegas after receiving troubling phone calls from a friend and her husband on the condition of her son, the report said. Upon Williamson’s return Wednesday, she saw her son’s injuries and immediately called 911, police said.
According to the report, Williamson’s son had suffered second- and third-degree burns to his lower legs and the tops of his feet. Second-degree burns also were found on his genitals and behind. Paper embedded into the boy’s burn wounds had to be surgically removed at University Medical Center, where the boy is recovering, the report said.
Barnes did not seek medical care for the 2-year-old after the burns first surfaced April 24, police said. Hospital officials also reported the boy was suffering from a fractured clavicle, according to the report.
Both parents told police the boy sustained the clavicle injury in an April 6 incident in which he fell out of a cart in a Walmart parking lot and landed on his head.
The 2-year-old is in critical condition, the report said.
According to the report, Barnes had told both Williamson and police that the boy had been burned by bathwater on April 25 and that his skin was peeling and bleeding. Barnes further told police the boy’s burns had blistered and he had cleaned the burns with peroxide and paper towels.
Police told Barnes the injuries the boy suffered did not fit Barnes’ description of what happened, but Barnes denied hurting the boy. He showed police a cell phone picture he had taken of the boy’s injuries, which police noted had a date imprint of April 24 on it.
Barnes had been in jail for four days for a domestic violence incident against his wife on Easter, according to the arrest report. He was released a day or two before his wife left for New York.
Barnes is incarcerated in the Clark County Detention Center, where he is being held without bail.
I just read a book called "Off the Street" by detective Chris Baughman of Metro's special vice squad. It sounds like this is a perfect example of a case Chris should get involved with. Godspeed, officer. Please help with this one.
I guarantee you, this suspect is a pimp and her "business trip" was to make money for him. That baby, to him (even though he's the dad) is just a pawn he uses to control her.
Sorry, step-dad.
Put him on probation, I'm sure that will punish him.
Calling him "step dad" is an insult to all the real men out there who take on the roll of step dad. This is human garbage. The longer I'm here the more I see just outright human trash...white and black. From the mother daughter murderers, Bryan Clay, this guy and others. As someone who came from a much smaller town environment, I'm getting a culture shock. I've seen more than enough just outright human trash in this city than I care to. I know there are good people out there. I've met them, interacted with them..they are here. I'm just getting overwhelmed by how many people are living here who provide nothing other than misery to others thru murder, robbery, theft, vandalism, abuse...and people like this guy. Total miscreants in society going thru life with hate and anger and manifesting in taking it out on others. It's going downhill folks.
TomD1228...
I hear you.
The LURE is obvious.
There are more bad actors per square foot here than anywhere on earth.
As for the cat in the photo above; FRY HIM IN HOT OIL.
@TomD..unfortunately people don't move to Vegas to raise families. People move to small towns to raise families. Two different types of people. One type that cares about their surrounding environment and one that doesn't. Vegas if full of ones that don't care. You can never tell this to people who are Vegas natives, they actually believe it's like this everywhere. Now you'll see people lash out on this post and tell me to get out.
Look. I grew up in a relatively small town. We had 160 in our graduating class. All 160 graduated. 80% went on to college. The other 20% went to trade school, into family business and a couple into the military. When I got here I was reading a newspaper with an educator who discussed the "problem" of a 50% drop out rate in school. I said to myself.."problem, problem!!"...that's not a problem, thats a NUCLEAR EXPLOSION at ground zero Las Vegas. The educator discussed it like a normal school district would discuss an issue with a student or incompetent teacher. I was stupified.
I suspect a lot of these 50%'ers with no skills, no jobs, no drive, an inability to think are a HUGE problem here. I can go down to Rancho and Lake Mead and I see them. On the corner, doing nothing but looking for trouble. Anyone who thinks Las Vegas is a good place to raise a kid is delusional. Just finished Pawn Stars book. All 3 hooked on drugs, qualuudes, meth in their youth and talked like it was a badge of honor in LasVegas. Amazing. I'm dumbfounded by the amount of scum walking the streets of this City. I do love what the city has to offer, but man o man there is a huge problem of human trash here. Huge. Maybe it's all big cities but it's quite shocking for me on the "quality level" of a large portion of the Las Vegas population..no disrespect to my fellow citizens who live here and conduct themselves in a human manner and contribute to society.
It's not all big cities TomD..people will say Chicago is worse, etc. The one thing they don't understand is VIOLENT crime is everywhere in this city. In Chicago and other large cities there are pockets of high crime areas but the suburbs are relatively safe of violent crime. Of course you will have the property crimes, etc anywhere you go. My wife and her sisters were born and raised here. None of them graduated high school..my wife went back and now has a college degree from UNLV. Of course she never got into the "scene" here, it's just that her parents worked swing shifts in the casinos and were at work when homework was to be done and then they were too busy sleeping when they should of been getting up and taking their kids to school.
I do hope the little one gets back to 100% and he never sees his poor excuse for a "step dad" again.
When will our courts stop being so lenient on people who hurt our children.If the judges had to spend time in jail for letting these violent people out.I think they would second guess their
rulings.
A "work trip" to NY. Yeah, right. Mom was only 16 when she had this kid.
This story makes me sick. Put the B--stard in jail and then he'll see what it's really like to get burned. Child abusers/molesters are dung in prison and he will not have a moment's peace.
I pray for this poor child, who must be suffering so badly. When he gets well, he should be taken from his mother.
@Brian
My thinking is those that live here with children are saying "I keep tabs on my child, I make sure the work is done, etc."
The problem is the fact that your child is surrounded by half the other children who don't care about their education, don't care about learning, look for trouble, do drugs, etc. HALF!! I don't care what tabs you keep on your child, he/she is being subjected to an awful environment with peer pressure and influence by the losers. It's a terrible, terrible environment no matter how much you watch your kid.
This guy and his loser girlfriend are just perpetuating the cycle. You think this child has a chance? Poverty and criminal conduct surrounds him. Hell, just look at him. You want this guy within 5 miles of you...or anyone? This child is doomed. Real father is gone and what's left can't support themselves.
If you don't want children or can't take care of them....please just use birth control people.
Wait.... Wait.... Wait one second here the step dad showed a picture of the boys injuries with a time and date stamp of the 24th that was noted by police..... That was four days before Momma left town on this trip, She had to have known about the burns also.
There's a lot more to this story that will come out and step dad will not be the only one being held accountable.
@Brian_D...
"it's just that her parents worked swing shifts in the casinos and were at work when homework was to be done and then they were too busy sleeping when they should of been getting up and taking their kids to school."
For all of you 'Teacher Haters' out there...
I give you prima facie evidence of what our educators face day in and day out in an often futile attempt at edge-yoo-kate-in' yer young-un's.
Adds TomD1228...
"The problem is the fact that your child is surrounded by half the other children who don't care about their education, don't care about learning, look for trouble, do drugs, etc. HALF!!"
Defense rests, your Honor.
to image what suffering this poor baby went through from injuries from the fall from the cart to the horrific burns and everything else they did to this child inbetween is absolutely unbearable...i'd like to see them both suffer the EXACT same punishment they caused this baby
@gmag
No one is going to convince me that teachers are to blame for any of this. Someone is going to tell me my school where the graduation rate was 100% and here where it is 50% is a teacher issue? They're delusional. This falls on the parents and the environment here. I can understand how some teachers get overwhelmed here. You've got half your class that don't care about learning, don't care how they conduct themselves, don't care if they disrupt the class and are essentially a drag on the entire class. How on earth can a teacher educate in that environment?
More money? Nonsense. Better training? Nonsense.
This is a society problem. Here, it's a nuclear bomb that went off. I really have no positive feelings whatsoever about these 50%'ers. The numbers are huge. No education. No chance to succeed. No chance for really anything. Sure, some will make it, some will do well..but most are in deep trouble, which eventually becomes our trouble in the name of Demar Barnes.
if this guy is found guilty...
if someone can do that to an innocent child...
the world would be a better place without them...
hey tommy...
the saddest part of all...
the right wing nut jobs think you can solve this problem with vouchers...
well...
i don't think they actually believe it...
they know it's pure crap...
but that is how they can put a band aid on it...
won't cost anything...
and they can sell it as hope...
just like they spin the myth that tax cuts raise tax revenues and create jobs...
pure crap...
w the village idiot proved that theory as crap beyond any and all doubt...
but they still spew it...
facts don't matter to them...
they only thing that matters is protecting big business and the top 1%...
because they pad their pockets with campaign contributions...
IT'S A FRICKIN JOKE!!!
Anyone with a brain knows you can't fix the Demar Barnes' of this world. Since coming here I just get more mystified by the senseless actions of these people.
Bryan Clay
The mother daughter murderers
The girl who killed the taxi driver
This guy
Maybe someone can enlighten me. I would love to do a 15 minute interview with these miscreants just to try and comprehend what the thinking was for their actions. This mother daughter team...they knew the woman, people knew they knew the woman, they left evidence at the scene, they had evidence in their own home, there was bloody clothes in the backyard, they pawned her coin collection. I mean are these people really that catastrophically stupid to think they were going to get away with it?
I would never make it as a detective. I just cannot under any terms comprehend the actions. I would be sitting across the able and at some point the urge to beat the crap out of them would probably take over. This coming from a guy who has never had a violent day in his life. Maybe it's me. I don't get it.
TomD: I was raised in SoCal and I've seen more violence here in Vegas to last me a lifetime. I'm not stupid, I understand there is violence anywhere you go, but here? It is just out of hand. Honestly, it is to the point that when my husband and I retire, I really would like to move to another state, if not back to California.
I think there may be something in Vegas' land that gets into these people...
I agree with another poster, you don't come to Vegas to raise a family...which is why it astounds me that Vegas is trying to get companies to move here...which means people with kids...Until the education gets better and the violence subsides, this will never be a place for a family...
@abdrgnldy
Exactly. I was raised in the Northeast where the schooling mindset is just head and shoulders different than here. I just cannot see how any professional can come here with young children, put them in the school system and think "he'll be fine". Right off the bat he's surrounded with a lot of other kids who are not going to make it thru. The numbers are astounding. This will take a toll on his education. Throw in the allure of the drug culture that seems to thrive here (read the Pawn Strs book and you'll get a first hand understanding of how bad it is) and you would really need to have your head examined to say "yes, I want to raise a family here". Add in the senseless violence. Maybe it's only me, but I've encountered a lot of angry people in this town. Real angry. Maybe a lot who feel they got burned by the real estate crash, those that have lost homes, those that suffer gambling losses (and you will lose, that is a guarantee..if you are a regular gambler, a local. I'm astounded by how many locals I run into here who think they will win). I don't know how you solve the problem and frankly I don't think you ever will. I love what Las Vegas offers (entertainment, weather, restaurants) but it will not be my last stop if this continues.
TomD: I agree with you on the schools, I don't think it is the teachers per se, as it is the peer pressure and the parents that just don't care. I was raised by a single mother for 12 years who worked all day, 5 days a week. I came home to an empty house (so yes, I was a latchkey kid), but one thing I was sure of, if I didn't do my homework when I got home, there would be h*ll to pay. My mom instilled in me the value of an education. My friends were also the same as me. We all wanted to get the education and graduate from High School, here they don't care. Sad to say, I was interviewing for a job and they asked me if I was willing to go back to college and finish my degree. I was honest and said "no". My reason is that I have absolutely no faith in the schools here, that includes the colleges. Sad...I would rather lie to my college in Huntington Beach with my parents address and go to school there while living here. Thankfully we don't have children, so I don't have to deal with the education problems here.
I agree, there are alot of angry people here, but I think it is just the culture of Vegas. I mean look at the news in the past couple of weeks, so many people being hit by cars.I run my errands or when hubby & I drive somewhere for lunch, it astounds me how many people out there are maniacs. Just yesterday we saw a truck honk his horn at the car in front of him 2 seconds after the light turned green...really? seriously?
Gambling is definitely a problem here. My husband has to drag me into a casino just to have lunch. Yes, it is fun to go in maybe once a year to play with friends who visit, but other than that, I can honestly say I can walk past a casino and *not* want to go into it. Which has made it harder on me to find a job that isn't associated with gaming (thankfully I did find one, in insurance..I start Monday and it only took me 5 years!). If you don't want to work in gaming, you are pretty much SOL. I think that is also what angers people, if you don't do construction or want to work in gaming, you have a harder time finding a job.
Drugs here (to me) are much more rampant, but then we have such a transient population here in Vegas. But I just don't know what can be done about all this violence and drug use.
As you, TomD, I love what Vegas offers, but I knew 6 months after moving here (and we've been here for 5 years) that I did not want to retire here....and we'll be here for at least another 20 yrs unless my husband gets a job elsewhere.