SAN ANTONIO — WARNING: This report contains graphic descriptions of child abuse.
After disciplining a 12-year-old boy for several hours with physical exertion, a San Antonio couple is accused of savagely beating the child who later lost consciousness and died at an area hospital, according to police.
Derrick Coles, 32, and Kapri Cheatom, 27, were arrested early Monday and each was charged with injury to a child causing serious bodily injury, a first-degree felony, KSAT reported, citing jail records.
Authorities confirmed to WOAI that charges may be upgraded upon further investigation.
According to an arrest warrant, officers responded to the couple’s apartment just after 7:30 p.m. Sunday for a report of an injured child and found Coles’ son, identified as Danilo Coles, unresponsive, KSAT reported.
The boy was transported for medical treatment where staff detected no brain activity as well as “several suspicious injuries.” He was pronounced dead that night, the TV station reported.
According to the arrest report, the boy, who recently enrolled as a sixth-grader at Neff Middle School, had just moved in with the couple after being removed from his mother’s custody in Chicago after being “abused” by her in the past.
Per the report, Cheatom said that they began disciplining the child for being “disrespectful” and causing problems for her and her family. The discipline involved doing push-ups, holding boxes that weighed about 50 pounds and writing three pages of the statement, “I will obey all people that live in the household,” WOAI reported.
In an affidavit, Derrick Coles said that he “busted” the boy’s lip on Sunday, and when the child stated he could no longer do push-ups he beat the boy with a belt so hard that it left welts on the child’s backside. Meanwhile, Cheatom admitted in her statement to kicking the child while he was on the ground in the fetal position, the TV station reported.
During their examination of the boy in the hospital, doctors told police that they found suspicious injuries, including severe injuries to his buttocks where the skin was hanging off, internal stomach bleeding and “whipping marks” on his torso and legs, according to the arrest affidavit.
Coles and Cheatom are each being held on $150,000 bonds, WOAI reported.
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