A 33-year-old Carson City man faces child abuse and domestic battery charges after allegedly slapping and flicking his 2-year-old son in the face inside Walmart and then, according to witnesses, hitting the child with a stick outside the store.
Authorities arrested Bruce Scott, 33, at about 1 p.m. on Jan. 21 after witnesses stated they saw him hit the child multiple times. Surveillance video from the Market Street store was collected in the investigation.
Authorities pulled over Scott in the area of Roop and Northridge streets after he was seen leaving the store. Officers advised the man as to why he was pulled over and he was asked if he had struck a child.
Scott told police that he never hit his child and had done nothing wrong. As the arresting officer was interviewing Scott, officers met with witnesses at a separate location who had reported the alleged abuse.
Police read Scott his Miranda warning and he agreed to speak with officers, which was recorded, according to the arrest report. Scott told authorities nothing had happened at Walmart.
When he was informed that a witness had called in and reported seeing him hit the boy, he again denied hitting the child. Scott was asked why someone would have though he was hitting the child based, in which Scott said he didn’t know, according to the arrest report. He was urged to tell the truth and that’s when he told officers that his memory was bad, that he flicked the boy in the mouth with his finger as a means to calm him down.
Witnesses reported they saw Scott screaming in the boy’s face, hitting the child with a stick, pinching the child’s face, covering the child’s mouth when he began to cry and then throwing his hat at the boy. Scott told authorities that he flicked the boy a “handful of times” in the face. When pressed further he confessed to having slapped the boy’s hands about 10 times, and then slapping him in the face, three or four times along with flicking him in the mouth, according to the arrest report.
When he was told that witnesses saw him hit the boy with a yellow stick, Scott told authorities that he “placed” the stick on the boy’s chest area. Officers found a yellow duster with a stick handle about 18 inches long in Scott’s vehicle.
He was placed into custody and faces charges of gross misdemeanor child abuse, second degree domestic battery and driving on a suspended driver’s license. Bail was set at $5,901.
