Philadelphia cops arrest mom, Lauren Rodriguez, who attacked 3-year-old daughter with machete

Philadelphia cops arrest mom who attacked her 3-year-old daughter with a machete — Philadelphia Police respond to machete attack on North Mascher Street. Image credit: CBS / YouTube

Police in Philadelphia arrested and charged the mother of a three-year-old girl who struck her toddler daughter multiple times with a machete. The attack went down in the city’s Olney section on August 11. In a macabre occurrence, the three-year-old victim’s father went after someone with a machete at the same location one week prior, according to CBS News in Philly.

Police identified the machete-wielding mother as 34-year-old Lauren Rodriguez who allegedly attacked the little girl inside their Olney home in the 5900 block of North Mascher Street. Rodriguez has been charged with attempted criminal homicide, aggravated assault and a variety of related charges.

Police say the girl suffered skull fractures and multiples lacerations on her head, shoulder and knee. The girl was placed in critical but stable condition at St. Christopher’s Hospital for Children.

When police arrived on the scene, the first responders found the young girl covered in blood on the street. Police went on to report it was a neighbor that made the call to authorities, after one neighbor, Pauline Williams, “described seeing a bloody mess after another neighbor pulled the injured child out of the home.”

A separate report from CBS News in Philly went on to quote Williams as saying: “I saw the daughter with her head split open from her mother with a machete. Thank God for the neighbors, they all got together and they really helped that little girl.”

Police have not revealed any motives for Rodriquez’s attack on her toddler daughter. When they got to the scene, police said that neighbors were trying to console the injured toddler.

Witnesses on North Mascher Street said that it was a friend of Rodriguez who carried the injured three-year-old out of the house.

A nurse who lived nearby tried to help the girl as police arrived.
“She was covered with blood from the head down,” a neighbor told NBC10. “You could see her skull. It was split open.” ~ NBC News

Neighbors told police that Rodriquez claimed to be giving her little girl a haircut when the injuries occurred. “She came out with her hands all cut up, asking if she could get a pair of shoes,” a neighbor said. “She was very incoherent. She didn’t know what was going on.”

Police had to enter the home to find and arrest the mom. Neighbors said that she was found upstairs inside the home, naked and incoherent.

Back on August 4, this same home was the site of another machete attack. The injured toddler’s father, Reinaldo Bermudez, was arrested after allegedly cutting someone with a machete. Bermudez was charged with aggravated assault and terroristic threats.