Off-Duty Revere Officer Allegedly Handcuffed, Beat 5-Year-Old Child: DA

BOSTON, MA — A Revere Police officer has been charged with physically abusing a young child, after allegedly handcuffing and beating the five-year-old son of a woman he was seeing.

Marcos R. Garcia, 32, of Saugus, was arraigned in Chelsea District Court on charges of assault and battery on a child causing injury and assault and battery with a dangerous weapon.

Prosecutors allege Garcia was at the home of the young child's mother, with whom he had a relationship, when the child would not eat dinner "quickly enough." Garcia sent the child to a bedroom, placed him in handcuffs, and beat him with his hands and a belt, prosecutors allege.

According to the allegations, based on separate interviews from the victim and another child, Garcia then tried to cover up the incident.

Prosecutors claim he told the five-year-old to take a shower and rub ointment on the wounds. He then told the victim and another child there to tell anyone who asked that the injuries were the result of falling down a flight of stairs, prosecutors alleged.

When the victim asked a school nurse the next day for a Band-Aid, prosecutors say, the truth soon came out. The child at first claimed bruises spotted by the nurse came from falling downstairs, but subsequently wanted "to tell the real truth," according to prosecutors.

The Suffolk County District Attorney's office says the five-year-old was taken to Boston Children’s Hospital for treatment and documentation of the injuries. There, clinicians also detected elevated liver enzymes, which are sometimes attributable to abdominal trauma, prosecutors said.

State Police assigned to the Suffolk DA’s office arrested Garcia on Saturday after an interview, and their investigation is ongoing.

Garcia was held Thursday on a $5,000 bail, and ordered to stay away from and have no contact with the victims and witnesses in the case and have no contact with children under the age of 18, except his own child, without the knowledge of a parent or guardian.

He returns to court Feb. 23.

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