A 19-year-old father from Brooklyn has been charged with felony assault after beating his 16-month-old daughter, Nylah Lewis, whom he fathered with 17-year-old Tammy Lewis. Shaquan Taylor made it clear on social media that when Tammy became pregnant, he wanted her to abort their baby girl.
The New York Daily News reports that in February 2016, when Lewis chose instead to give birth to their child, Taylor wrote on social media:
Feel mad disrespected. Told that lil b—h to get abortion (and) she tells me she is but still keep it. Exactly why I hate that lil b—h.
Despite trading insults over social media, Nylah’s parents agreed that their daughter could visit her father on Father’s Day this year. The Daily News reports that while Taylor and Nylah were alone, Lewis “received a Facebook message telling her there was a problem with Nylah and she needed to come to the apartment.” When she arrived, Nylah was “fighting for breath,” and her mother grabbed her and attempted to leave.
Taylor reportedly “chased the pair down to the lobby, where he flattened the mother with a single punch as she clutched their little girl.”
The paper also states that thanks to her father’s abuse, little Nylah was left with “multiple skull fractures, bleeding on the brain and a black eye,” and she needed a blood transfusion. Taylor claimed her injuries were due to a fall, but medical personnel say Nylah’s injuries are not consistent with such an accident.
BET.com quotes Nylah’s grandmother, Belinda Lewis, as saying, “My granddaughter is brain dead. My daughter is devastated. She’s breaking down.”
As of the New York Daily News’s report, Taylor was being held on $250,000 bond.
