Local man accused of striking 9-month-old

A Havre man is accused of hitting a 9-month-old hard enough to cause a hemorrhage in the infant’s left eye.

Bruce Collins, born in 1989, is charged with felony assault on a minor. An arrest warrant was returned on Collins Thursday and he is in the Hill County Detention Center and listed on a $50,000 bond.

Charging documents say a registered nurse at Northern Montana Hospital called police Feb. 6 to report “suspicious bruising” and a hemorrhage on a 9-month-old’s face.

The responding officer noticed the bruising on the left side of the child's face, which went from his eye to his jawbone, the hemorrhaging, a handprint on the left side of his face and bruising on the right side, documents say.

The nurses told the officer they were told that the infant was with his mother’s boyfriend, Collins, when he climbed out of his crib, fell down and hit his face on the dresser handles as he fell.

Once the infant was discharged, the officer went to the home and photographed the room in which the injury was reported to have happened. The officer observed that the handle on the dresser seemed to be consistent with the child’s injury on the right side of the face, the documents say.

Officers were asked to respond to another call at the hospital some days later, regarding the same child. This time, a representative from Child Protective Services was also there. The representative had requested a follow-up emergency room visit which led to the child being taken to the hospital.

The infant had gone through imaging and the hand print on his face had become more defined.

“It looked like a finger, middle finger, and pointer finger with an impression of a palm,” documents say.

The officer set up an interview with the mother, who said the day of the injury she left for work at 6 a.m.

At 10 a.m., she said, Collins called her, crying, to tell her something was wrong with the child’s face. She said no one else besides Collins took care of the child during that time, and watching the child is something he did regularly.

Police found Collins and then interviewed him at the station.

Collins said he woke hearing the infant cry and he changed his diaper and gave him a bottle. At 9:45 a.m., Collins said, he woke up again and was getting ready to take his mother to her dialysis treatment when he noticed something was wrong with the child’s face. He did not know what happened, the document said, adding he thought the child hit his face on the dresser.

The officer felt that because of the severity of his injuries, the infant didn’t just fall against the dresser.

“I have seen children (that) age fall against furniture and their injuries are not near as severe,” the officer said in the documents.