PITTSBURGH — A man accused of taking off with his 3-year-old daughter after assaulting the girl’s mother Tuesday night has been charged with kidnapping, police said.
Authorities said Dwayne Taylor was taken into custody just before 11:30 p.m. Tuesday and his daughter was found unharmed.%
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Police went looking for the pair after Taylor allegedly assaulted the girl’s mother, Renay Watkins, at a home in the 200 block of Climax Street in the city’s Beltzhoover neighborhood and then left with his daughter.
Watkins was taken to a hospital in good condition, authorities said. She was released from the hospital Wednesday and shared her story with Channel 11 News with the hope of sparking change in the system that she says failed her.
“There’s a chair on the porch that I believe he used to step on and came in, climbed over this way and then grabbed her as I told her to try to run upstairs,” Watkins said. “As he grabbed me, he struck me in the face. I had fallen down. He yanked me down, and basically pulled me from the back and tossed me on the concrete.”
Watkins said as Taylor went to leave with her daughter, she fell and hit her head. She said the only thing she remembers after that is waking up in a hospital bed.
Watkins told Channel 11 News Tuesday’s incident wasn’t the first time Taylor’s abusive behavior was reported. Channel 11 News found a past police criminal complaint that said a protection from abuse order, or PFA, was created in January. The PFA states that Taylor is not allowed to be inside the home on Climax Street.
“That’s why I got the PFA: to continue to keep him from being able to hurt me or assault me,” Watkins said.
Watkins said while Taylor sits behind bars charged with kidnapping, burglary and assault, she is left to figure out how a system that she says was designed to protect her left her bruised and beaten.
“It’s something more that needs to be put in place to know that or feel that we’re safe,” she said.
Statistics show that one in four women will experience domestic violence in their lifetime. The most recent stats show there were over 37,000 PFA applications filed nationwide in 2014.
Even though a PFA may not prevent an abuser from contacting a victim, advocates recommend that victims apply for them anyway because they make it easier for police to intervene early.
For more information about PFAs and additional resources,
and
HERE.
Cox Media Group
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