Abusive Dad Shoved Lit Firecrackers Down Child's Pants, Allegedly Coerced His Kid To Eat Their Excrement

A Connecticut man charged with alleged child abuse has been slapped with additional raps after new claims of horrendous child maltreatment have emerged from a 2020 case being investigated by the Naugatuck Police Department.

Kevin Grant, 33, of Naugatuck, Connecticut was arrested on Aug. 10 on child abuse charges. However, he was subsequently released on bond. He now awaits trial on several criminal charges associated with the abuse of his kids who are between the ages of 5 and 11, reported the Daily Voice.

“This is an extreme case,” said Brendan Burke, Assistant Child Advocate for the Connecticut Office of the Child Advocate.

An affidavit stated that the children suffered terrible acts of cruelty and were forced to witness and sometimes participate in their siblings’ abuse, the Naugatuck police revealed.

The court document further related that Grant repeatedly hit the toddlers with a belt until they could no longer walk. In another instance, one of the children was punished by being locked in a closet and ordered to defecate in a box. The boy was then coerced to eat his own feces while his siblings were forced to watch, NBC Connecticut reported.

Other acts of cruelty included the children being given a bat with thumbtacks on it and being forced to hit each other and Grant allegedly shoving firecrackers down one of the children's pants and watching as they set off, reported the Hartford Courant.

“It's alarming and extremely troubling,” Burke added.

According to Deputy Commissioner Michael C. Williams, it is unusual for the Department of Children of Families (DCF) to encounter cases of extreme physical abuse.

“It is very rare for Connecticut to have cases of that level of severity,” Commissioner Williams explained.

Following his arrest, Grant has been charged with reckless endangerment, risk of injury to a child, and intentional cruelty to persons. However, he has been released on a US$50,000 bond. The suspect appeared in Waterbury Superior Court on Aug. 11. Online records show he will be back in court on Oct. 5.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), at least one in seven children in the United States have experienced child abuse or neglect in 2021.

The agency considers child abuse and neglect as grave public health issues that lead to undesirable childhood experiences which can have long-standing effects on kids' health, opportunity, and wellbeing.