A 25-year-old Dorchester woman was ordered to have no contact with her 1-year-old son after allegedly punching him on the face on board an MBTA bus yesterday afternoon, Suffolk County District Attorney Daniel F. Conley said.

ERICA RYAN (D.O.B. 7/24/86) was arraigned this morning in Roxbury District Court on a count of assault and battery on a child causing injury. Assistant District Attorney Esther Laine recommended that she be held on $25,000 cash bail and requested an order that she stay away from and have no contact with the boy; Judge David Weingarten set bail at $500 but imposed the stay away order.

MBTA Transit Police responded to the area of Warren and Brunswick streets at about 3:30 p.m. yesterday for a report of an affray on board a Route 23 bus. When they arrived, they found Ryan surrounded by a group of witnesses who would not let her leave the area.

“No one is going to take away my baby,” Ryan allegedly screamed repeatedly as she began to flee down Warren Street.

Officers stopped her at the corner of Fowler Street, calmed her, and asked what had happened.
“I was just trying to feed my baby on the crowded bus, then my hand slipped and I hit him in the mouth,” she allegedly said.

Three witnesses who had been aboard the bus gave officers a different story, telling them that Ryan had been verbally abusing the toddler with a series of vulgar expletives.

“Little bastard, you got one more chance,” she allegedly said to the child just before punching him in the mouth with a closed fist, witnesses said.

When others on the bus took issue with that treatment, she allegedly responded, “No one will tell me how to be a parent.”

Officers saw the child to have dried blood around his mouth and watery, inflamed eyes as if he had been crying. Based on those observations and the witnesses’ statements, the officers took Ryan into custody and summoned Boston EMS to assess the child’s condition. Emergency medical technicians transported him to Boston Medical Center for further evaluation and treatment.

The child is now in the custody of another family member living in Boston.

Ryan is represented by attorney Adelio De Miranda. Her case will return to court on Aug. 25.