Posted on 02/24/2012 8:11:38 PM PST by Hunton Peck
The son of Robert F. Kennedy has been charged with harassment and endangering the welfare of a child for allegedly clashing with two nurses who tried to stop him from taking his 2-day-old baby boy from a Westchester maternity unit, NBC New York has learned.
According to a Mount Kisco, N.Y. police report obtained by NBC New York, Douglas Kennedy, 44, took his baby from the newborn unit of Northern Westchester Hospital on Jan. 7, against the instructions of hospital staff who told him the infant needed to stay there. The arrest was on misdemeanor charges.
Kennedy and his wife, Molly, disputed the accusations in a statement to NBC New York, saying "these allegations are absurd."
The nurse in charge of the unit, Anna Margaret Lane, said in a deposition that Kennedy wanted to take the child "to get fresh air" that evening. As he tried to leave, he was accompanied by a doctor from the hospital's emergency room, identified in court papers as "Dr. Haydock," later determined to be Dr. Timothy Haydock, a longtime family friend.
While the nursing staff sought to get Kennedy to return the baby to his bassinet, Haydock reportedly encouraged Kennedy to walk with the baby by telling nurses that he was with him, according to Lane's deposition.
Kennedy ignored the pleas of the nursing staff and carried the newborn -- identified in court papers as "B.K." -- to the elevator, police said. As the nursing staff tried to calm him and dissuade him from leaving the hospital, Kennedy turned and walked toward a stairwell leading to the outside of the hospital.
Lane blocked the doorway, "placing both hands on the doorknob" to prevent Kennedy from leaving, police said. Kennedy grabbed the nurse by her left wrist and twisted it to that he could pass into the stairwell, police said.
The baby's head "began to move from side to side, and in an attempt to stabilize the baby's head, nurse Cari Maleman Luciano reached toward the infant's head," police said.
"Instinctively as a nurse, I raised both my arms toward the neck of the baby to steady the violent shaking of the baby's head and neck," Luciano told investigators in a deposition.
While holding the child in his right arm, Kennedy kicked Luciano in the pelvis with his right foot, knocking her backward onto the floor, police said.
As he did this, Kennedy fell onto the floor with the baby in his arms. Kennedy then got up and ran "down the stairs with the infant until he was stopped by security and escorted back to the infant's room," the police report said.
The police report did not say whether the infant was harmed in the altercation.
The statement to NBC New York from Kennedy and his wife said there was no crime committed.
"The nurse had no right to attempt to grab our child out of his father's arms and I, Douglas, was shocked and appalled when she did so," the statement said.
Haydock said in a statement to NBC New York that Kennedy, whom he has known for more than 40 years, was not putting his healthy baby at risk by seeking to take him for a walk outside.
"I witnessed the incident and I can state unequivocally that the nurses were the only aggressors," he said. "To charge Mr. Kennedy with a crime is simply incomprehensible to me."
Kennedy is the 10th child of Robert F. and Ethel Kennedy. He and Molly have four children.
A Brown University graduate, Kennedy started his journalism career with The New York Post and most recently worked as a general assignment reporter and bi-monthly news program host for Fox News.
Im more interested in knowing exactly why he couldnt take his child in the first place.Hospitals now refuse to let you take your newborn unless you allow them to administer immunizations.Many peeople think these contribute to autism.Is that the possible reason?Kennedys have never been my favorite people but I want to know more before condeming him.
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I’m not sure about the immunization thing. We have a 1 year old grandson and he wasn’t given immunizations before leaving the hospital.
I think overall it was very odd behavior. Who takes an infant for ‘fresh air’ at 2 days old in the winter? And to not hold the baby properly so you can attack someone? There’s a lot here I don’t understand.
44 Years old. This must be the kid born after the assassination. He’s probably really screwed up in the head
The hospital didn’t want to release us with our third child because we didn’t have an infant carrier carseat. We had a convertible carseat that was already strapped in the car. They said policy was that she had to be strapped into her carrier carseat and placed on my lap in the wheelchair to be wheeled out to the car.
I told them I wasn’t going to send my husband out to buy a carrier seat just so I could follow their policy and that I was leaving whether they discharged us or not. I carried my baby in my arms out to the car and put her in the carseat. It was ridiculous!
“This was all because the nonAmerican nurse(s) were incompetent.”
They used to import nurses from the Phillipines because they could hire them cheaper. Now they hire them from India because they speak better English than the previous imports.
Some hospitals do require the immunizations. Our current pediatrician is opposed to them, so her patients are given a pass. Sometimes the hospital tries to buck the physician. Our pediatrician was told by another parent that she (the other parent) obtained a copy of the hospital bill and that the hospital billed insurance for the hospital administering the immunizations even though they had not given them. Our pediatrician was spittin’ about that one and urged us to check our bill though it had been a year since our youngest was born.
They did escort me out when I got pale and face-planted the floor. But if you've ever watched that process... Sheesh. I'm feeling faint just thinking about it.
/johnny
Been there. ping to my post 24.
We had a Filipino nurse for our oldest son’s birth. She named him. She was wonderful. She had been here for 20+ years by that time.
So Dr. Hayduke says he’s known the Kennedy over forty
years and the guy is 44 years old. Known him since
he was knee high to an oldsmobile.
Why would anybody want to take a 2 day old baby outside in January??? I don’ think Reporters and cameras are allowed on the maternity wards. PHOTO-OPs in the Lobby, good press????
Why would anybody want to take a 2 day old baby outside in January? Really? We took our 2 day old baby HOME from the hospital in January. She was born in January. At the time, that was policy. Two days in the hospital, and you’re outta there unless there’s something wrong. AND then they made us come back because she had jaundice. Do you know how many times we had to take her out? In January? I’m sure she was scarred for life!
I think it would have been more effective to tell hospital staff that “I’d like to take our baby home than I’d like to take him out for a breath of fresh air.”
When was the last time anyone heard of a father entering a maternity ward, removing a newborn from its bassinet....and attempting to take it out into the elements, shoving and pushing the medical personnel all the while.
The nurse's natural instinct was to reach out to protect that tiny infant against what to her was the unknown....weird and reckless behavior on the part of a man who for all she knew could have been drunk....or even in the throes of some kind of domestic fight or retaliation situation.
There's more going on here than meets the eye. Seeing that it involves a Kennedy, it can't be anything good.
Poor bebeh.
Leni
The assassination was in June of ‘68, so a child born after that would still be 43. Not that the reporter couldn’t have gotten the age wrong, of course.
He has not figured out that “smart” people of socialist institutions own his child yet. Uncle Teddy would be so proud...of the nurses.
The doctor is siding with him against the hospital staff. Lawyers galore.
How many drinks did he have before he went to the hospital?
Entitlement + Inebriation = Really Really Dumb S**t
It is February here in NY, did he even attempt to dress the child appropriately? Or did he just walk in in a typical drunken Kennedy stupor and do whatever he wanted?
For those of you defending his “right to his child”, if he’s shaking an infants neck and kicking nurses and falling down with a new born and then attempts to run away, he shouldn’t be taking that child anywhere, somethings wrong with him.
The Kennedys do suck, but how can anyone here believe that the hospital staff have the right to tell a father he can’t have his own baby? I would do more than just kick a nurse who tried to do that to me, and he/she would deserve it. For God’s sake, is everyone in this country ready to surrender themselves to their slave masters so easily?
I’m with you. It’s his child; the wife seemed agreeable with it as well. Did you see the part where it claimed that the baby’s head was violently shaken during all this? I find the story a bit incredible.
First it was the social security number that was mandatory in a hospital; now it’s immunizations. The nazification of the U.S.A. and health care system is almost complete.
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