18-year-old male booked with felony battery after head-butting a 16-year-old who struck his head and had to be hospitalized for a hematoma causing pressure to his brain;

An 18-year-old Chalmette male was booked with felony battery after he head-butted a 16-year-old who fell and struck his head and had to be hospitalized for a hematoma causing pressure to his brain, Sheriff James Pohlmann said.

Also, in a separate incident, a Chalmette man was arrested for leaving two children, ages three and five, sleeping in a truck while he shot pool in a bar.

In the head-butting incident which happened Monday, April 14, Frank “Justin’’ Cummings, 18, 3225 Golden Drive, Apt. A, was arrested Tuesday and booked with second-degree battery. He is being held in St. Bernard Parish Prison in lieu of bond set at $12,000.

Cummings head-butted Elijah Comeaux, 16, of Chalmette, who fell and struck the rear part of his head on a metal pole, the sheriff said. The incident happened in mid-afternoon and by later that night the teen was vomiting and complaining of pain to his mother, who saw a large hematoma had formed on the rear of his head. He was taken to Children’s Hospital for evaluation, the sheriff said.

He was admitted to the intensive care unit and it was initially thought surgery would be needed to relieve pressure on the brain, sheriff’s deputies were told early Tuesday. Comeaux, interviewed at the hospital, said Cummings and another boy had been quarreling with him for a week or so but didn’t give a reason.

Cummings was interviewed by sheriff’s detectives on Tuesday, acknowledged hitting Cummings, and was booked on the felony battery count.

Comeaux’s family said Wednesday no surgery was performed after Comeaux was responding to treatment and pressure was subsiding on the brain.

In the separate incident about 12;35 a.m. Saturday, April 12, in which two young boys were left in a vehicle, James Acosta, 30, 2317 Pelitere Drive, Chalmette, was booked with two counts of child desertion. He had left them sleeping in the truck, with the engine running and a stereo system playing at a loud volume.

The Sheriff’s Office was called to a bar over the children left alone in child safety seats.

When a sheriff’s deputy went inside and found the owner of the truck, he asked Acosta why the children were left alone. Acosta said he had gone in to cash a pay check from work, had unexpectedly met someone he knew and during a short conversation picked up a cue and began to shoot pool while talking. He said he had been there no longer than 10 minutes.

Acosta was taken into custody at that time and the children were given to a relative of Acosta who was called and picked them up.

Sheriff Pohlmann said periodically people are arrested for leaving their juvenile children unattended in vehicles while they go into a store or somewhere else. The law involved, he said, is there to protect the children who in such a situation are vulnerable to being abducted, sexually molested or in danger of getting out of the vehicle on their own and getting hurt. As summer approaches, residents are also reminded that children left in vehicles on hot days have died of heat stroke, including one case years ago in St. Bernard Parish, Sheriff Pohlmann said.