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A Missouri man is accused of beating his teenage son, causing a seizure, because someone “answered the phone disrespectfully” when he called.
According to a probable cause affidavit, Matthew Proctor, 41, has been charged with child abuse after he alleged punched the boy in the face several times and continued to hit him after he was on the ground.
The heavily redacted affidavit indicates that the incident involved Proctor’s children by two mothers. The documents says the children were at the home of one of the mothers last Tuesday preparing for a preplanned trip to Kansas City theme park Worlds of Fun.
Proctor allegedly became angry about a phone call he made to the house that morning and, because he felt disrespected, announced that he was coming over to get his kids and would “beat” someone’s “a**” when he got there. The children, all under the age of 18, were agitated and concerned about Proctor’s arrival. One of the children later told deputies that Proctor had previously “punched the air out of his lungs.”
When Proctor arrived, the teen boy went outside and “screamed at Matt,” who punched him in the face with his fist. The boy fell to the ground and started shaking, while Proctor punched him again. Proctor’s oldest daughter then ran out and punched her father in the mouth.
Proctor grabbed his youngest son and fled the scene.
He was arrested about a half an hour later and claimed that he was hit first. In an interview, he said that the mother of his two oldest daughters refused to allow him to take the children, so he began screaming outside for them to come. He said the children “were being disrespectful.”
Proctor claimed boy came out and hit him in the mouth twice and he responded by swinging wildly and hitting the teen once in the face.
A neighbor’s doorbell camera, however, corroborated the children’s version of events and not Proctor’s. In the video, the boy never hit Proctor, although his daughter did, after he knocked the boy to the ground.
The boy was taken to a children’s hospital for treatment and was found “to have a red mark and swelling on the left side of his face” along with “injuries on both sides of his face, his jaw, and a concussion.
Proctor is being held on a $75,000 bond with an August 6 court date, Law&Crime reported.