Courtroom footage has captured a father attacking a man suspected of murdering his 3-year-old son.
The footage was taken during a court hearing Thursday in Hamilton County, Ohio.
A judge found the father, Tonio Hughes, in contempt of court and sentenced him to seven days behind bars in the Hamilton County Justice Center, according to WLWT-TV.
“Judge Megan Shanahan and the Hamilton Sheriff’s Office would like to emphasize that this behavior will not be tolerated in the courthouse,” Hamilton County Sheriff’s Office spokeswoman Kyla Woods said, according to WXIX-TV.
Toward the end of the hearing, Hughes walked up to 22-year-old murder suspect Desean Brown and punched him several times until Hughes was pinned down by police and handcuffed.
After officers asked the judge to hit the “panic” button to request more backup, Hughes tried to escape the officers’ hold but was unsuccessful.
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“Everything inside him, just the pain and everything, took over,” Faith Burton, a family friend, told WXIX.
Did the father do the right thing?
“He did what I think any of us would do.”
Brown is accused of fatally stabbing Hughes’ girlfriend, Nyteisha Lattimore, before throwing Hughes’ and Lattimore’s 3-year-old son, Nylo Lattimore, into the Ohio River in December 2020.
Authorities said they believe Nylo was alive when Brown threw him into the river, according to The Cincinnati Enquirer. Nylo’s body remains missing despite extensive searches, per news reports.
Hamilton County Prosecutor Joe Deters said Nylo “died a miserable death.”
Brown was charged with two counts of aggravated murder with a death penalty specification, one count of gross abuse of a corpse, and one count of evidence tampering, according to WLWT.
The hearing Thursday was about whether a recorded confession wherein Brown told police that he killed the mother and son would be admissible in court as evidence.
The judge greenlighted the use of the taped confession as evidence in the trial.
According to prosecutors, Nylo’s 29-year-old mother was stabbed on Dec. 5, 2020, inside a Walnut Hills apartment.
Her corpse was located near the Purple People Bridge on Dec. 12, 2020, along the Ohio River’s banks, prosecutors said, according to the news station.
“He chose to kill Nylo in an incredibly barbaric method,” Hamilton County Prosecutor Joe Deters said at a February 2021 press conference, the Enquirer reported. “I still have nightmares about this.”
“I cannot even imagine what that little boy was going through,” Deters said, adding that Brown’s method to kill the baby was “gruesome.”
Cincinnati detectives said Nylo’s blood was found on a blanket recovered with his mother’s body.
Brown’s next court date is scheduled for Aug. 29.
