Video game argument ends with adult slashing 10-year-old’s throat, Tennessee cops say

A 10-year-old boy was taken to a Nashville hospital after an adult man slashed his throat, according to Tennessee police and media reports.

The incident occurred Sunday evening in Lewis County, which is around 80 miles south of Nashville. A video game argument at a residence led to the man slashing the child’s throat, police said, according to WSMV.

Someone else took the child to a nearby grocery store where they met with an ambulance, WKRN said, citing a police report. The child suffered non-life threatening injuries and was taken to Vanderbilt Medical Center, according to WKRN.

Back at the residence, police were called while another adult held the suspect at gunpoint, police said, according to WVLT. Police said they eventually Tased the suspect because “he would not drop the knife,” according to WVLT.

The suspect, later identified as 29-year-old Sammy Sadler Jr. was charged Monday with attempted criminal homicide, aggravated assault, aggravated child abuse and resisting arrest, WZTV reported.

It’s not clear what the relationship between Sadler Jr. and the child is. The boy is “lucky to be alive” and the knife barely missed his artery, WZTV reported.

Nearby Memphis has reported a decrease in reports of child abuse during the coronavirus pandemic, according to WHBQ, but Tennessee child advocates worry about what that may mean.

“When this pandemic is lifted and children go back to school, we’ll see a large influx of reports of child abuse, because it’s typically when children are home for Christmas or out of school (when) we’ll generally not see as many cases of abuse,” Gena Frye, Director of the Children’s Advocacy Center of Sullivan County, told WJHL.

This story was originally published April 20, 2020 at 10:10 AM.