Coney Island

Alleged baby killer pleads not guilty as families scuffle in court halls

July 17, 2017 By Paul Frangipane Special to the Brooklyn Daily Eagle
Late baby daughter, Nylah Lewis’ family fighting with Shaquan Taylor’s father in the court hallways. Photo center, Lewis’ great grandmother, Janice Munford, far left, Taylor’s father. Eagle photos by Paul Frangipane
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Tensions erupted into the halls of the Brooklyn Supreme Court as an expletive-laden fight broke out between two families on Monday after a 19-year-old Coney Island man pleaded not guilty to murdering his 16-month-old daughter.

“I want him to stay in jail the rest of his life,” the baby’s great grandmother Janice Munford said of the father loudly to reporters in the court hallway. “He’s a murderer.”

Shaquan Taylor was arraigned before Judge Vincent Del Giudice in a 10-count indictment that charged him with second-degree murder, manslaughter and other charges in the murder of his baby daughter, Nylah Lewis.

A man who called himself Taylor’s father ran up behind Munford, who was wearing a shirt with the baby’s face on it, and began yelling, “There’s two sides of a story,” before the families engaged in a screaming match and court officers had to pull them apart.

Lewis died on June 23 after being on life support in Maimonides Medical Center for a skull fracture and swelling of the brain, as well as swelling and bruising to the body and face, according to a Brooklyn DA statement.

Five days earlier on Father’s Day, Taylor called the 17-year-old mother and asked her to pick Lewis up from his West 32nd Street home.

When she arrived, Lewis was unresponsive and the mother took the baby out of the apartment when Taylor allegedly followed and struck her, handed the child to a bystander, and continued to beat the mother, according to the statement.

Taylor claimed that Lewis fell from a bed, but her injuries are allegedly inconsistent with a fall, according to the statement.

“This father was supposed to protect his innocent baby daughter but instead he allegedly violently and senselessly took her life and then assaulted her mother when she tried to come to her rescue,” Acting Brooklyn District Attorney Eric Gonzalez said in the statement.

Taylor is held in custody without bail and faces up to 25 years to life in prison if convicted.

“I’m coming back every time he comes to court,” Munford told reporters.

Before erupting in obscenities, Taylor’s father said he wants the mother to be held responsible as well.

“If my son’s going down, she’s going down too,” he said.

Taylor is expecting another child with another woman, according to a report by the Daily News.

The next court date is set for July 27.

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