Boy's Abuse Is 'Incomprehensible' Hillsborough Deputy Declares

It's never easy, said Hilsborough County Sheriff's Office spokesperson Larry McKinnon, in recounting his emotions taking down a report of a severe case of aggravated child abuse, which sent a 21-year-old man to jail and a 3-year-old boy to the hospital fighting for his life.

McKinnon said it's the details leading up to the hospitalization that particularly wrench at his gut, in which Dontevious Gardner reportedly beat the boy — his girlfriend's son — to within inches of his life.

Gardner, who turned 21 the day after the June 4 assault, reportedly was on probation for unrelated charges of armed carjacking and burglary of an unoccupied dwelling. His probation status was revoked, and he was being held in the Hillsborough County Jail without bond, McKinnon said.

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• See the attached video, in which McKinnon discusses the case.

"It turns my stomach," McKinnon said, in an interview Saturday, June 8, outside the sheriff's sub-station at Winthrop, shortly after the 4:20 p.m. report was issued, detailing the charges and reported confession of Gardner.

"I've been in this business for more than 34 years," McKinnon added. "No matter how old you are, no matter how many years you have in the business, it's never easy to accept the death or severe injury of any child. It's incomprehensible. There's just no way to accept this."

According to the sheriff's office report, deputies heard June 7 the confession of Gardner, who lived with his girlfriend — the boy's mother — in an apartment complex in the Greater Brandon area of Tampa, at 2207 Kendall Springs Court.

Also in the home was an uninjured 1-year-old, who after the incident was temporality placed into a shelter pending the results of the ongoing investigation.

Reportedly on June 4, the couple argued and the girlfriend went to her bedroom, as her 3-year-old son cried in another bedroom. According to the report, she called 911, but not before:

"Gardner heard the child crying and went inside the child's room and struck the child numerous times in the head with the heel of his hand. Gardner then forced the child to maintain a push up position until the child went unconscious. After the child went unconscious, Gardner picked the child up and violently shook him trying to wake him. The child remained unresponsive so Gardner took the boy to the bathroom and held him under the shower. When the child did not regain consciousness, Gardner dropped the child resulting in the child striking his head on the edge of the porcelain tub."

"We see far too many times children and pets involved in domestic cases, in which one or the other spouses [or significant others] are having personal, relationship problems," McKinnon said.

In the wake of Gardner's reported violence was an unresponsive 3-year-old, with severe head trauma, in critical condition at a nearby hospital.

"The fact is, this is our child, the community's child," McKinnon said. "And this is the exact reason why whenever there is a case of domestic violence, even if the children are not involved directly, we call child protective services."

An investigation is ongoing to determine the factors that led up to the June 4 case of aggravated battery.

McKinnon said the sheriff's office is grateful for places like A Kid's Place in Brandon, which houses children, and their siblings, pulled from a home in which abuse or neglect has occurred or is suspected.

"Not only are they pulled from their homes, but also from their siblings, and A Kid's Place allows us to keep siblings together, to help them get through the trauma and ordeal together," McKinnon said.