Why Florida Should Be Kicked Out of the Union

In our continuing series on why Florida doesn't need to be one of these United States, we present the following item from Delray Beach:

Delray Beach -- Shameka Mosley was breaking up with her boyfriend early Thursday morning. His way of coping was to slam their baby on the hood of their car and throw the 9-month-old into a canal, police said.

"Better get your baby before the alligators do," Charles Edward Tyson told her.

Charles Tyson Jr. was pronounced dead at 4:02 a.m. at Delray Medical Center, police said. His 20-year-old father was arrested and charged in the death.

The saga began about 1:45 a.m., when Tyson and his girlfriend, Shameka Mosley, 17, were returning from Boca Raton Community Hospital with their baby sleeping in the back seat. They had taken him to the hospital to be treated for diarrhea.

Mosley, who had broken up with Tyson several times, told him this time it was for good, Mosley said.

Tyson accused her of cheating on him. The argument got louder and the baby awoke, screaming. That's when Tyson's anger turned on Charles Jr., whom he loved, Mosley said.

"We had a good relationship. He got mad because I broke up with him," Mosley said Thursday afternoon outside the Delray Beach Police Department, wrapped in a hospital blanket, tears sliding down her face. "He was just a happy baby."

At West Linton Boulevard and Congress Avenue, Tyson held his child outside the passenger window and threatened to kill him, Mosley said. She persuaded him not to.

Yet minutes later, when they reached the 700 block of Southwest 17th Avenue, Tyson threw the baby out the window, police said. He landed face-first in the dirt, police said.

Mosley struggled with Tyson, but he picked the baby up by his leg and slammed him into the hood of the car, denting it, police said.

Mosley took Charles Jr. in her arms and put him in the front passenger seat.

But before Mosley could get into the car, Tyson drove off, stopping at a bridge over the canal in the 2200 block of Lowson Boulevard, just west of Congress Avenue. He threw the baby into the water, then drove back to pick up Mosley, police said.

"He told me, `I threw your baby in the lake,'" Mosley said. "I told him he was sick. `Take me where my baby's at.'"

He did. And then he walked off to the pink house where he lived with his grandmother in the 1300 block of Southwest Second Street.

Witnesses saw Mosley screaming, wailing and crying incoherently. She called her brother, Fred, who called the rest of the family.

Mosley said she tried to find her baby but couldn't see him, couldn't hear him.

Police were called at 2:52 a.m. and quickly found Charles Jr. floating in the canal, 10 feet from the shore and 300 feet south of the bridge. It appears he was in the water for about 20 minutes, police said.

Mosley and Charles Tyson weren't supposed to be together Thursday. Citing repeated violence, Mosley's mother, Joanne Mosley, sought an injunction in November to bar Tyson from contact with her daughter except from 5 to 7 p.m. on Fridays. The baby lived with Mosley and her family on Southwest 12th Avenue off Atlantic Avenue. The court order was set to expire in November.

When police arrived at his grandmother's house, Tyson -- who worked at a Subway restaurant west of Delray Beach -- was sitting on the couch, waiting for them, his grandmother, Bernice Tyson, 65, said. Police already had been to the house but Tyson wasn't home.

"I said, "What are the police looking for you for?'" Bernice Tyson said. "He said, `I threw my baby in the water. When the police come, I'm going.'"

Tyson was arrested peacefully at 3:21 a.m.

Bernice Tyson said Charles Tyson called his mother from jail and said he remembered throwing the baby in the canal but nothing before that.

"I'm sad that he will never forget that because that's his child," Bernice Tyson said. "He said, `I can't believe the baby is gone.'"

Mosley, who works in food service at Lake View Care Center nursing home, said Tyson had anger-management issues but had never been violent with her before Thursday morning.

Delray Beach police charged Tyson with murder, aggravated child abuse, child endangerment and violating a domestic-violence injunction. The Orange County Sheriff's Office arrested Tyson in 2002 for misdemeanor battery.

Tyson and Mosley thought they were cousins when they met three years ago at The Palace roller rink west of Lantana, because Mosley's stepfather, Alan Mosley, is Tyson's uncle. When they discovered they were not blood relatives, they started a relationship, Shameka Mosley said. And when the baby was born, he was loved.

"He was everything a father could be, that's why it's so hard to believe he killed him," Joanne Mosley, 47, said.

Charles Tyson Jr., was just starting to stand on his own and trying to walk, Alan Mosley, 52, said.

"It's not right for him to take something that we love," Alan Mosley said of his nephew. "All I can do is cry. I miss him so much. I wish he were here."

The baby even said his first word, Alan Mosley said. It was "Dad."

And some people will tell you that there is a just and loving God in this universe.