A father allegedly held a woman and her infant at knife point in a car and then tried to use the car to run down the infant’s rescuer in a parking lot late Monday at the Flash Foods convenience store at Gen. Screven Way and Highway 84 in Hinesville.
The man, Aaron Williams, 23, of Ludowici, faces charges of aggravated assault and cruelty to a child, according to Det. Michael Bell of the Hinesville Police Department.
The incident occurred around 5:30 p.m. The 11-month old child was rescued by a Ludowici woman, Kristal Peters, and was taken by ambulance to Liberty Regional Medical Center. Both mother and child were later taken to Memorial Health University Medical Center in Savannah, according to police.
Peters said she was pumping gas when she heard a woman at a nearby pump screaming for help. She can be seen leaving her car and running to a nearby PT Cruiser, where she takes a baby from the car and then tries to hide behind a gas pump.
“I thought I heard her say her baby was choking,” Peters said. “I go running over there and the father of the baby had the mom and baby both in a knee lock and had a knife at the baby’s throat. I snatched the baby and tried to go run and hide.”
The man, who reportedly was sitting on the passenger’s side of the car when Peters grabbed the child, can be seen getting into the car’s driver’s seat, security video shows. It then shows Peters running with the child before being struck by the car as she got close to the store.
Peters declined medical treatment by EMS.
“I think my foot’s broke, my knees are all scraped up and my head hurts,” she said. “I’m going to go to (the hospital) later. I’m a mess now, I just want to go home.”
Peters said she didn’t know why the man was holding the baby and mother at knife point in the car.
“I just heard her screaming for help, saying somebody call 911.”
Police arrived within minutes after calls “of somebody trying to run over a lady and a child in the parking lot,” Bell said, noting the attack may have “stemmed from a domestic violence situation. That’s still under investigation at the moment.”