Mother charged with punching 1-year-old son

A 25-year-old Roxbury mother was ordered to have no contact with her 1-year-old son after allegedly punching him in the face while traveling on a T bus.

Erica Ryan was charged with domestic assault and battery for the incident aboard the Route 23 bus as it traveled through Roxbury on Tuesday afternoon.

She told police that her hand slipped while she was feeding her son and she hit him.

However, witnesses told Transit police that the mother became aggravated on the bus.

Witnesses “all stated Ms. Ryan was cussing at her son calling him a ‘mother [expletive]’ … while she was trying to feed him,” according to a police report.

A witness then said she punched her son in the mouth.

A group of “hostile” people on the bus surrounded  Ryan until police arrived, according to the report.
Police said when they separated the group from Ryan she fled down the street holding her son saying, “No one is going to take away my baby.”

“This is when I observed dry [sic] blood around her son’s mouth and his eyes to be watery and inflamed as if he was just crying,” police wrote in their report.

A T spokesman said a video of the incident would not be released because of the “active nature” of the investigation.

The boy was treated at Boston Medical Center  and released to another family member in Boston.