Inset: Kishawn Porter (Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office). Background: Kishawn Porter in an Arizona courtroom (AZ Family).
An Arizona boxer is accused of fatally beating his girlfriend’s 2-year-old son, using his hands and possibly a sandal in an attack that allegedly caused devastating internal injuries. Kishawn Porter, 23, allegedly left the child with a lacerated stomach and severed blood vessels in his intestines, among other injuries, according to police.
The medical examiner said the force required to tear the child’s stomach would have been substantial. The injuries were consistent with child abuse, according to an arrest affidavit identifying the victim only as Porter’s “girlfriend’s child.”
“Based on the injuries, no one could have survived the severity,” investigators wrote in the affidavit, obtained this week by Law&Crime.
Emergency crews were sent to an apartment in Mesa at about 4 a.m. Tuesday after receiving a report that a child needed medical attention. The boy was taken to a nearby hospital, where he was pronounced dead.
Police said an autopsy revealed rib fractures in various stages of healing. The child also had injuries to his liver, pancreas and stomach, along with severe internal bleeding. Investigators reported finding “500 ml of blood in the victim’s abdomen,” according to the affidavit.
Porter is also accused of hurting another child in the home, a 1-year-old whom he allegedly spanked and struck in the mouth, rib cage and abdomen. Police said Porter’s knuckles appeared to show evidence that he had hit both children.
“There was obvious bruising to his knuckles,” the affidavit states.
At Porter’s first court appearance this week, a prosecutor from the Maricopa County Attorney’s Office said he had “hit and punched the 2-year-old victim multiple times with either hands and/or sandal,” according to AZ Family.
It remains unclear what relationship Porter had with the 1-year-old. He faces charges of first-degree murder and child abuse. A judge set his bond at $1.5 million.
Prosecutors argued in court filings that Porter posed a flight risk if released. They cited the seriousness of the charges, along with allegations that he avoided contact with law enforcement and disabled his social-media location sharing while police were searching for him.