Inset: Justin Martin Wagner (Ephrata Police Department). Background: The Walmart in Ephrata Township, Pa. (Google Maps).
A Pennsylvania man was recently arrested for allegedly grabbing a sleeping child out of a shopping cart at a Walmart and throwing the child onto the ground, according to law enforcement in the Keystone State.
Justin Martin Wagner, 42, stands accused of one count each of aggravated assault, simple assault, endangering welfare of children, and disorderly conduct, according to the Ephrata Police Department.
The underlying incidents occurred on the night of Aug. 11 at a Walmart on East Main Street in Ephrata Township, a small community located roughly 65 miles west of Philadelphia.
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“Witnesses reported a male who was causing a disturbance inside Walmart earlier, was observed taking a sleeping child that he was with from a shopping cart, lifting the child up in the air and then throwing the child onto the pavement in the parking lot,” the police department said in a press release.
Wagner was later arrested at his residence in Lancaster with the assistance of the Lancaster City Police, authorities said.
The defendant vociferously disputed most of the charges against him in comments to LNP Lancaster Online.
“I deny every one except for the disorderly conduct,” Wagner told LNP.
The defendant insisted the child never hit the ground and was not injured.
“You think I’m going to body slam a 6-year-old kid?” Wagner said. “There’s going to be marks, there’s going to be bruises. I’m 180 pounds. If I slam a 6-year-old kid, which I would never do, it’s going to hurt him.”
The local newspaper obtained additional details about the incident.
Police say witnesses described the inside-the-store disturbance as the man becoming irate when a payment did not go through, according to LNP. This scene included the man shouting obscenities while shopping with another adult and three children, police said.
After being asked to leave the big-box store, the defendant was escorted out, the newspaper reported. The man had been shopping for groceries on the night in question and was concerned about being double-billed, according to law enforcement.
The man also allegedly yelled an obscenity while ordering the child to wake up, police said. In 911 calls, witnesses said the defendant then yelled at the child and told them to get into the vehicle. Eventually, he “picked the child up and threw them into the interior of the vehicle,” according to a more detailed police report obtained by the newspaper.
To hear Wagner tell it, the child had previously injured their knee and the man touched that spot when getting the child out of the cart, resulting in the child screaming, according to LNP.
“I said okay, you’re not going to get out, I’m going to get you out,” the man said. “I don’t know how people saw (the child) get slammed, because (the child) didn’t get slammed, I maybe picked (the child) up a little bit aggressively, but no, (the child) didn’t get hurt or nothing.”
Police allege that passersby tried to intervene and check on the child but were told “mind your own business.”
Wagner, however, described that incident to the newspaper as two people in a van telling him to “leave that kid alone” and that it was actually his wife who told them to mind their own business.
The defendant was released after posting $100,000 cash bail. He is slated to appear in court for a preliminary hearing on Aug. 17.
The post ‘I would never’: Man denies taking sleeping child out of Walmart shopping cart and slamming them to the ground first appeared on Law & Crime.
