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.
The only child born after RFK’s death was Rory, a girl.
Douglas was 2 in 1968.
RFK Jr. has been very active campaigning against vaccines.
Im with the Kennedy guy on this. The hospital doesn’t own that kid. Give their best advice,, and if he ignores it based on better advice, (say from a doctor),, document it in the chart.
Nurses went beyond their role.
a dem getting persnickety over big govt telling him what’s best for the health and welfare of his family?
oh the irony...
Maybe you should read the whole story instead of becoming hysterical like these nurses did.
Sounds to me like they're going to attempt to sue the deep pockets here.
He isn’t bad for a Kennedy, in that regard.
“By voluntarily entering a hospital- especially in a non-emergency situation, you pretty much agree to the rules of the hospital. “
NO,, you are buying a service. You can refuse to continue their service at any time. The hospital acquires no special superior rights,, and the hold no say over the parents choices about the child. If a parent is presenting a dire physical danger to the child,,, they could physically intervene, the same as ANYONE could. But a father deciding to stroll outside, carrying hs new child, in the company of his family doctor,,ain’t it.
Drunk
That doctor is also a family friend, and apparently the attending physician.
“It sounds like he might have been drunk.”
It does, dear, it does.
This reads like he was loaded.
Just in case anyone was wondering, I checked, and on Jan 7 (the day of this incident) in nearby Chappaqua, NY, the high and low temps were 59/35.
“... It sounds like he might have been drunk. Who takes a newborn out for fresh air? ...”
Really! When my older boy was born I brought in a 7 Oz. Pony bottle of Rolling Rock and let him have a taste. He responded well to it. Babies like beer.
Video of incident : http://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/local/douglas-kennedy-arrrested-baby-westchester-RFK-son-140296403.html
Not the same person I don’t think.
Sounds like you might want to consider getting another pediatrician. At least one with a little common sense. Or at least an MD. Does this one have a bone through his nose and do readings with sheep's entrails?
I am still waiting to hear the explanation for how humanity survived at all pre-hospital policy. Or pre-hospital.
I’m not saying we ‘should’ take a newborn out to play in the snow here but Good God, they aren’t pieces of glass or something that will crack below room temperature.
Being an upstate NY born guy, I assure the naysayers that newborn kids do survive exposure to even sub zero temps just like we do for the moments between hospital and car. Or a simple step out the door. They do not suddenly contract pnuemonia and die. If they did, humanity would not exist today.
If they had a proper maternity unit they’d have hit the lockdown button and nobody would have left.
She needs to sue him personally.
I read that.
To be honest, the only thing that sounds credible in this story, is the doctor's statement above, and comments from the Mother herself.
The fact is the *Mother*, is also totally supportive of the Doctors statement and the Dad in question.
Well, many didn't. In prior centuries it was fairly common to have children die of any number of things... Along with quite a few mothers that died in childbirth. I think I'd be slow to just assume that modern medicine is some kind of enemy.
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