A man slapped a crying baby in the face with an open hand on a Delta flight when the boy didn’t stop crying because he reacted to the altitude change as Delta Flight 721 descended into Atlanta. After slapping the crying baby in the face, the boy began to cry even louder, reports CNN on Feb. 16, 2013.
“Hundley then turned around and slapped the 2-year-old in the face with an open hand, which caused the child to scream even louder,” according to an affidavit filed by an FBI agent in the U.S. District Court in Atlanta. “The boy suffered a scratch below his right eye.”
The man who allegedly slapped the crying baby is 60-year-old Joe Rickey Hundley from Hayden, Idaho. Hundley was sitting near the two-year-old boy on the airplane. The boy’s mom, 33-year-old Jessica Bennett from Minnesota, and her son were seated in row 28, seat B, on Delta Flight 721 from Minneapolis to Atlanta on Feb. 8, 2013.
Despite any attempts to calm her crying son as the plane was descending, the boy didn’t stop crying. Hundley was allegedly so annoyed by the crying baby that he first told the mother to "shut that ('N word') baby up." He then “turned around and slapped” the baby.
Other passengers on Delta Flight 721 tried to help the crying baby’s mother and supported her after the flight by providing witness statements about the incident.
Joe Rickey Hundley has been charged with the assault of a minor. Assaulting a minor under the age of 16 can carry a prison sentence of one year. Delta Air Lines is supporting the federal investigation that is being conducted in the case of a man slapping a crying baby on an airplane.
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