Man kidnaps mother of newborn at Norton Women’s and Children’s Hospital
LOUISVILLE KY December 14 2019Â A Kentucky man is accused of kidnapping his newborn child’s mother from outside a hospital at gunpoint and threatening to “smoke” her and her family if he learned she was “hiding behind police.”
Anthyun L. Mask, 18, was arrested Monday and has pleaded not guilty to kidnapping and third-degree terroristic threatening, news outlets report.
He whipped out a shotgun last week, loaded a round into it and threatened to kill the woman if she didn’t get into his car, which was waiting outside the Norton Women’s and Children’s Hospital in Louisville, according to an arrest citation. The two share a newborn who was in the center’s neonatal intensive care unit at the time.
During the confrontation, he pointed the gun at an unknown person and “made a statement similar to ‘You want some of this,'” the citation says. He then fired the shotgun into the air, Louisville police said.
Mask drove the woman to her grandmother’s house, but she soon returned to the hospital and called police. Police said Mask then repeatedly called the woman and her sister while they were talking to officers at the hospital.
A hospital security guard reported overhearing a phone conversation between the woman and Mask in which he threatened to “smoke” her and the police if she was hiding behind them, the report says. The woman responded that she was headed back to her grandmother’s house, and Mask told her he would “smoke” the woman’s family too, it says.
Early the next day, police were called to a home where the woman was staying because a possibly armed Mask was knocking at the home’s door. He wasn’t there when police arrived.
The victim has filed for an emergency protective order against Mask.
Mask’s lawyer, Krsna Tibbs, maintains there was no kidnapping and told The Courier Journal that his client was trying to cope with the stress of his newborn being in intensive care. He said Mask was trying to get visitation with the child and “tensions were high because of what’s going on in the hospital.” He also disputed the encounter between Mask and an unknown person described in the arrest citation.
Mask is set to appear in court Dec. 20.
