Hatboro Police Department Photo by James Short.
The man reportedly assaulted his girlfriend, her son during the September incident, said reports.
A verbal argument between a woman and a man over a Crumbl cookie resulted in felony charges when the Hatboro man reportedly injured his girlfriend and her son.
Omar Lozada, 34, of the 600 block of South York Road in Hatboro, is facing multiple charges, police said, stemming from a Sept. 5 event this year. An unnamed, 10-year-old, juvenile victim came to police on Sept. 8 with his father to report that his mother’s boyfriend, Lozada, had assaulted him, said reports.
The incident occurred inside the South York Road residence, police said.
The boy and his father came to Hatboro police with medical documentation of a concussion without loss of consciousness due to the assault. The boy was forensically interviewed by police on Sept. 10, said reports, which noted the boy said a fight began as a verbal argument over a cookie. The argument, police said, became physical, with Lozada hitting the boy’s mother.
According to reports, the boy leaped onto Lozada’s back “in an effort to help his mother,” but Lozada “pulled him off and threw him to the floor, causing him to strike his head on a rug.” The boy told police, reports said, that Lozada then sat on the boy’s back as he laid on his stomach on the floor, taking the child’s cell phone. The boy said he’d recorded the incident on his phone, but Lozada deleted it, police said.
Reports further stated that the video was later recovered by the boy in his deleted videos, and then sent to his mother’s phone. The boy said that his mother took his phone, sent the video to herself, and then permanently deleted the video from his phone, reports said.
The boy told police this was not the first time he was assaulted by Lozada, and that his mother had told him “not to tell anyone anything that happens” at the house and that if he did, “he would be in big trouble,” said reports. The boy said he did not feel safe at the home when Lozada is there, police said.
The boy’s mother, and Lozada’s girlfriend, was also interviewed, police said, on Sept. 10. While she admitted to a verbal argument over a cookie, she said it did not turn physical, and that the son was never involved, said reports.
The woman said “that Lozada has never put his hands on [the boy]” and told police, per the reports, that she believed the boy’s father told him to report things so that the father can obtain full custody.
While the woman initially denied that the video of the incident ever existed, she later told police, according to reports, there was a video which police asked her to recover as it could “help her regain custody of her son.” She then said another person had the video, and that it was no longer on her phone, reports said. Police said she stepped from the room for around five minutes, returning with a three-second video of Lozada reaching for the boy’s phone. Police stated that the “video appeared to be cropped or edited,” though the woman denied doing so.
According to reports, the boy’s father confirmed his account explaining the same version of events the boy had told police, while also confirming that the boy had a headache from the time of the event until he could take him for medical review. He also said another incident occurred “about two years ago,” though there is no police record of the event.
The Office of Children and Youth provided a liaison to interview the mother at the Hatboro Police Department, reports said, and she blamed his concussion on “playing sports or wrestling,” repeating her blame of the boy’s father for such comments against her boyfriend. She again denied that the altercation turned physical and denied that there was any video of the incident, reports stated.
OCY also conducted an interview with Lozada at the York Road house, where, according to reports, he admitted that there was an argument after he’d asked about a cookie and “[the mother] responded disrespectfully.” Police reports said that Lozada claimed he took the woman’s phone, and she attempted to gain it back, ripping his pants’ pocket. Police reports noted also that Lozada also took the boy’s phone when he saw him recording because “it was agreed that [the boy] would no longer record incidents that take place in the home.”
Lastly, police reported that a download of the woman’s phone records displayed a series of texts with a friend also on Sept. 5, outlining the incident, stating “We got into a huge fight,” and “I’m tired of him always putting his hands on my son” among other phrases that contradicted the mother’s statements to police and OCY, reports said.
As a result of the ongoing investigation, the Hatboro police filed charges and a warrant against Lozada, including felony charges of endangering the welfare of children, misdemeanors including two counts of simple assault including grading victim under 12, defendant 21 or older, as well as a single count of simple assault, all stemming from the Sept. 5 incident.
Lozada was released from county jail after posting a $1,000 bail (ten percent of a $10,000 monetary bail) on Oct. 11. Lozada is schedule for a preliminary hearing on Nov. 7 at 10:45 a.m. before Magisterial District Judge Todd Stephens.
