Baker police officers
arrested an 18-year veteran with the Baton
Rouge Police Department on Wednesday night after he pushed and
choked his 14-year-old daughter in an argument over a cellphone, according to
court records.
Sgt. Wroten Brumfield was
charged with domestic abuse battery strangulation, which is a felony, according
to police.
A nurse at Central High
School suspected Brumfield’s daughter had experienced child abuse.
The nurse contacted the state
Department of Social Services, which filed a police report after doctor’s
findings said the physical abuse was not by accident.
Baker police said the girl’s
mother received a text message from her daughter stating that her dad choked
her, slapped her and pinned her against the floor, “ultimately striking her
with a piece of board on right elbow.”
According to police records,
the teen told police that her father confronted her about a cellphone. After
she walked away, her father grabbed her, pushed her against the wall and began
choking her, according to the police report.
The teen said she was thrown
from one room to another and slapped, and “restrained on the ground like a
prisoner,” the report says. The 14-year-old told police that while she was on
the ground, her father told her, "You must want me to treat you like I
treat the people on the street."
The teen’s stepmother
eventually came home and interrupted the incident, according to the police
report.
Brumfield told police that he
confronted his daughter about a cellphone. “She refused to give the cellphone
to him, at which time he grabbed her forcefully, trying to get said phone,” the
report says.
Brumfield stated that he did
slap his daughter and retrieved a wooden stick he described as a “spanking
paddle” to spank her. Brumfield said that while trying to spank his daughter,
he hit her in the right arm, striking her bone. He said he immediately stopped.
Brumfield was booked into
East Baton Rouge Parish Prison, and has been placed on administrative leave
pending the criminal and internal Police Department investigation, Baton Rouge
Police Cpl. L’Jean McKneely said.