An Odessa couple was arrested April 19 after a 13-year-old boy told police he was punched in the face by his mom’s boyfriend and left bleeding in the roadway when he bailed out of their car for fear of being beaten some more.
According to an Odessa Police Department report, an officer called Mindy Aguilar on April 17 to pick up her runaway son and she did so along with her boyfriend, Jose Ramon Simon.
Thirty seconds after the trio left, the officer said he was flagged down by a citizen on North Dixie Boulevard who said the boy had jumped out of the car. According to the report, the boy was crying and shaking, had a new knot above one of his eyebrows and had road rash on his legs, hands and arms.
The boy told the officer that once he’d gotten into the car, the trio had begun arguing. He said Simon had leaned back and punched him in the face and he jumped out because he feared being injured further once they got home. Simon and Aguilar kept on going, he said.
When reached on the phone, Aguilar told the officer they didn’t stop because they needed to give her older son food and a ride to work, according to the report. When she came back to the scene, she told the officer she’d told Simon to hit the child because he’d told her to shut up.
Two other witnesses told police they saw the boy fall out of the vehicle and continue on.
Simon was arrested on suspicion of injury to a child and abandoning/endangering of a child and was released on two surety bonds of $20,000 each. Aguilar was arrested on suspicion of abandoning/endangering of a child. She was released on a $25,000 surety bond.
