MARY ESTHER - A woman threw a 3-month-old baby toward an Okaloosa County sheriff's deputy Monday in Santa Rosa Mall’s parking lot after he tried to stop her on suspicion of shoplifting, according to the Sheriff's Office.
The baby was in a carrier and was not hurt.
Ashley Taylor Wright, 23, of Pensacola, hid two pairs of jeans and a shirt valued at $261 in a baby stroller and left Dillard’s, the Sheriff's Office reported.
When a deputy approached Wright’s vehicle in the parking lot, she started yelling for her husband to leave, the Sheriff's Office reported. Two children were in the car.
The deputy tried to get Wright out of the car. She put the carrier in front of her and yelled, “You will have to shoot through the baby to get me,” according to the Sheriff’s Office.
She then ran from the vehicle and threw the 14-pound infant in her carrier toward the deputy, the Sheriff’s Office reported.
Wright fell and fought the deputy when he tried to control her. She was taken to Fort Walton Beach Medical Center for a cut on her head.
She was charged with petty theft, child abuse without great bodily harm and resisting an officer without violence. She was taken to Okaloosa County Jail and placed on $7,000 bond.
