Local & State Headlines

Baby video back on ’net

• A video that was once yanked from a popular Web site has now reappeared as a part of a news broadcast.

J.D. Sumner

LEESBURG — It looks as if the disclaimer offered up by a suspect involved in a child abuse complaint was right: no babies were harmed in the making of his film, authorities say.

Lee County Sheriff’s Col. Duane Sapp said Thursday that the parents of the victim had finally contacted investigators and reported that their 8-month-old child was not injured after being launched through the air in a video aired on YouTube this week.

A 16-year-old Lee County boy has been jailed in a youth detention center charged with a felony child cruelty charge in connection with the June 27 incident. Prosecutors would not say when he is scheduled for a detention hearing.

His identity has been shielded from the public because of state privacy laws concerning juvenile offenders.

In an interview with Fox News Network Thursday night, Sapp said the Lee County Sheriff Harold Breeden planned to meet Monday with Southwestern Judicial Circuit District Attorney Cecilia Cooper to lobby for charges to be lodged against the teen who investigators believe videoed the incident.

In the video, a teenager puts the baby on the edge of a large, inflatable pillow before jumping on the other end, propelling the baby into the air.

At the end of the video, as the baby is crying, the teen looks into the camera and urges his viewers not to worry, no babies were injured in the incident so it is OK to laugh, investigators say.

Thursday, Sapp said that investigators had seized a computer from the house of the suspect as part of their ongoing investigation into the incident.

“The sheriff got wind that there might be another incident, so we issued a search warrant and recovered a computer,” Sapp said.

Prosecutors say that the computer will now be examined by state forensic specialists to see if there is any evidence of additional crimes.

As the public response to the incident mounts, Cooper said that the growing outcry from people asking why they didn’t charge the teen who videotaped the incident is natural, but that there simply isn’t any evidence to prove that he knew what was going to happen before the taping began, which shows no intent.

“We looked really hard for a way to prosecute that young man,” Cooper said. “I’ve spoken with prosecutors in other circuits and there just wasn’t any evidence that he knowingly participated, aided, abetted or encouraged the crime prior to it being committed.”

“I understand the reaction from people. What the cameraman did may have been morally reprehensible, but, at this point, there doesn’t seem to be any way I can prosecute that under the law.”

The video was immediately pulled off the popular video-sharing Web site, but in an ironic twist, the national media attention the incident has garnered has allowed the video to be re-posted in the forum as a part of a news broadcast.

That posting has prompted nearly 600 comments from viewers who found the video morally reprehensible and even those who hailed the video as an instant comedic classic.

But others found humor in the video that has landed the teen in jail.

Cooper acknowledged Thursday that the media’s coverage of the incident and the repeated showing of the video on television broadcasts has spread the video to a much larger audience than what YouTube alone could have.

“Have you tried to Google ‘Flying Baby’? You get hits all over the place from places all over the country,” Cooper said.

One viewer even acknowledged the irony of the situation.

“If the video has been removed from YouTube, how come it’s just been posted again just now in the newscast?” they wrote. “That being said, he’s not going to last long in prison.”

The responses on the site ranged from those pledging violence against the boys involved to postings urging others to post similar videos.

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