McALLEN, Texas (ValleyCentral) — After officers responded to an assault call that led to a Texas man’s arrest, they discovered what they described as unsanitary conditions at the family’s home.
Edgar Garcia was arrested on charges of aggravated assault and injury to a child, according to Hidalgo County Jail records. His bond was set at $300,000.
On Nov. 26, authorities received a report that a man physically threw a woman and small baby out of an apartment, according to a McAllen Police Department offense report. At the scene, the officer found a woman and man identified as Garcia in an alleyway shouting at each other while the woman was carrying a baby in her arms.
The woman told officers that the man had beat her up, according to the report. However, as the police checked Garcia for weapons, the woman told police, “Don’t arrest him because I love him,” the report stated.
Police tried to separate the two and discovered a large kitchen knife on the floor between them. The woman told police that when she refused to buy Garcia more beer, he became upset, punched her, pulled her hair out and threw her on the floor, the police document alleges.
The woman said she was holding her 5-month-old baby when she was thrown to the floor, causing the child to hit the back of her head on the floor, police added.
The woman told police that she was pregnant, and the report stated the woman had swelling to her legs and cuts on her stomach and chest. The officer noted a lump on the back of the child’s head.
The officer observed that the woman and Garcia both had a strong smell of alcoholic beverage emitting from their breath and bloodshot eyes.
The police report detailed how authorities searched the apartment for more children, found “possibly over 100” beer cans around the residence, and described the woman’s 1-year-old daughter as having no shoes and was “very dirty.”
“The living conditions were very bad, trash everywhere, molded food everywhere and roaches crawling everywhere,” the police report stated.
The woman was “extremely intoxicated” while in custody of two children and being intoxicated while pregnant, the document stated. According to police, she was not arrested at the time due to her injuries but she was charged with endangering a child, a state-jail felony.
