A San Francisco man was charged with murder Monday with killing a 7-month-old boy who was in his care, prosecutors said.
Joseph Williams was charged with murder and assault on a child causing death, according to a statement from the San Francisco district attorney’s office.
Williams had been babysitting the child, identified only as Baby S., on April 20, authorities said.
He brought the boy to a hospital later that day.
The baby died of traumatic head injuries caused by blunt force, the prosecutor’s office said. It didn’t provide any details.
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The boy wasn’t related to Williams, prosecutors said.
Williams had two previous arrests for domestic violence against a girlfriend who wasn’t the mother of the boy who died, the DA’s office said.
However, no charges were filed after the woman told police that she started the fights — once after breaking into his apartment — and didn’t want to press charges, according to the DA’s office.
That would have made the cases impossible to prove beyond a reasonable doubt, the office said.
“We believe the available facts of these two cases supported the decision to not move forward with charges but that is not enough,” the DA’s office said in the statement. “In light of this tragedy, we will be reviewing all policies related to charging domestic violence crimes, including discussions with our law enforcement partners to ensure we are all using best practices to obtain admissible evidence and to support victims.”
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