NYC man with violent rap sheet charged with assaulting toddler

31-year old Christopher Elder, a man with a violent history, was taken into police custody after he allegedly assaulted a three-year-old child sitting in a wagon Friday by knocking the toddler onto the pavement in Queens and leaving her bloodied.

At around 6:20 am, Maria Zamora, the 48-year-old grandmother of the child, had been taking out the trash with her granddaughter, Sophia, when Elder allegedly approached her and began yelling at her. According to reporting by the New York Post, Elder proceeded to accost the grandmother and then gripped the play wagon Sophia was sitting in before forcefully kicking it into the street. In so doing, Sophia fell out of the blue wagon, hit the ground, and suffered a cut to her head.

Sohpia was rushed to the Flushing Hospital Medical Center, where she received five stitches. "Someone hit me. Someone kicked me," Gabriel Zamora, the girl's uncle, recollected she told him at the hospital about the violent assault.

Elder was not immediately apprehended, but was caught Friday, and brought to the hospital for evaluation. Queens Criminal Court Judge Stephen Antignani sent Elder to jail without bail Saturday after he was arraigned on charges of assault, endangering the welfare of a child, and harassment. He is due in court March 28.

This isn't Elder's first run-in with the law. He has a long rap sheet that includes at least eight prior arrests. In fact, this isn't even his first alleged offense involving the assault of a child. On Dec. 11, Elder allegedly attacked a 36-year-old mother and her 9-year-old daughter in Flushing, punching each of them in the head.

"He hit me mostly in the back of my head, my back. He ended up hitting my daughter too, in the face, on the forehead. Afterward, when he was done hitting us on the floor, I was just so upset that nobody helped, nobody stopped him and I'm even more mad that he did it again," the mother said, according to NBC New York.