MUNCIE, Ind. – A Muncie man is accused of striking the mother of his newborn infant in the face with a bottle of frozen breast milk.

Brandon Matthew Barnard, 38, was arrested Tuesday on a preliminary count of domestic battery.

His 27-year-old accuser told Delaware County sheriff’s deputies that Barnard entered her home without knocking, “went straight to the freezer in the kitchen” and announced he wanted to “take pictures of the breast milk” in the freezer.

After she demanded that he leave her home, the woman said, Barnard “started taking frozen bottles of milk” and indicated he would be keeping it. As their argument continued, she said, he threw “a frozen bottle of milk, striking her on the right side of her face, causing her pain.”

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Barnard then allegedly took the woman’s cellphone, which shattered when he hurled it against a refrigerator.

His accuser said Barnard then “swung me around, almost knocking me to the ground,” as she held their infant, and in the view of her four-year-old daughter. He then allegedly left in the woman’s car.

Barnard was later taken into custody at his home, in the 1100 block of East 18th Street. He was being held in the Delaware County jail on Wednesday under a $5,000 bond.

In other police news:

Domestic battery: A Muncie man has been accused of striking his two-month-old son in the face as he threw punches at the child’s mother.

Nicklas Letra Jackson, 24, is charged with Delaware Circuit Court 1 with domestic battery resulting in bodily injury to a person under the age of 14 and domestic battery committed in the presence of a child younger than 16.

The baby’s mother said during a Feb. 27 disagreement, Jackson struck her in the right temple as she held her baby, and continued to throw punches, with one hitting the infant in the left eye.

The more serious of the charges against Jackson is a Level 5 felony carrying up to six years in prison. An initial hearing in his case is set for April 24.

Douglas Walker is a news reporter at The Star Press. Contact him at 765-213-5851 or at dwalker@muncie.gannett.com.