Yelm -
An admitted drug addict is accused of drugging her own baby.
20 year-old Aliese Gatlin is facing felony drug and child abuse charges after she says she put a Percocet in her nine month-old daughter's bottle.
Gatlin says her daughter was "cranky as hell" and would not sleep so thought since Percocet made her sleepy, it would make the baby do to sleep too. Instead, it nearly killed the little girl.
Police say the baby started making gurgling noises and Gatlin called 911. She is heard on tape telling the operator that her daughter would not wake up and was not breathing well. The child was airlifted to Mary Bridge Children's Hospital in Tacoma. The baby was in such bad shape, paramedics had to insert an IV directly into the baby's bone marrow because her veins were collapsing.
"Percocet is a respiratory depressant and in a young child it can stop them breathing which is basically what happened," says Thurston County Chief Deputy Jim Chamberlain.
No one was home at Aliese Gatlin's house in Yelm when we went there. Her daughter is staying with relatives while she faces felony drug and child abuse charges.
"It's a young kid and it's a big deal and you want to protect small children from people harming them," says Prosecutor Dominique Jinhong. "We're not supposed to be personally involved in our cases so we try really hard to look at these cases objectively but it's really hard."
Aliese Gatlin is charged with distribution of a controlled substance to a minor, assault of a child in the third degree, and criminal mistreatment in the second degree. Prosecutors say those child abuse charges weren't more severe because Gatlin says she didn't mean to hurt her baby.
Gatlin told police during interviews she has used methamphetamine, cocaine, heroin and marijuana and was prescribe Percocet after her baby's father committed suicide.
20 year-old Aliese Gatlin is facing felony drug and child abuse charges after she says she put a Percocet in her nine month-old daughter's bottle.
Gatlin says her daughter was "cranky as hell" and would not sleep so thought since Percocet made her sleepy, it would make the baby do to sleep too. Instead, it nearly killed the little girl.
Police say the baby started making gurgling noises and Gatlin called 911. She is heard on tape telling the operator that her daughter would not wake up and was not breathing well. The child was airlifted to Mary Bridge Children's Hospital in Tacoma. The baby was in such bad shape, paramedics had to insert an IV directly into the baby's bone marrow because her veins were collapsing.
"Percocet is a respiratory depressant and in a young child it can stop them breathing which is basically what happened," says Thurston County Chief Deputy Jim Chamberlain.
No one was home at Aliese Gatlin's house in Yelm when we went there. Her daughter is staying with relatives while she faces felony drug and child abuse charges.
"It's a young kid and it's a big deal and you want to protect small children from people harming them," says Prosecutor Dominique Jinhong. "We're not supposed to be personally involved in our cases so we try really hard to look at these cases objectively but it's really hard."
Aliese Gatlin is charged with distribution of a controlled substance to a minor, assault of a child in the third degree, and criminal mistreatment in the second degree. Prosecutors say those child abuse charges weren't more severe because Gatlin says she didn't mean to hurt her baby.
Gatlin told police during interviews she has used methamphetamine, cocaine, heroin and marijuana and was prescribe Percocet after her baby's father committed suicide.
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