TAMPA, Fla. — A Pasco County, Fla., firefighter-EMT has been arrested on a misdemeanor domestic battery charge, accused of hitting his wife, also a firefighter-EMT, during an argument over their infant son.
Joseph D. McGuire of 13121 Shadberry Lane is being held without bail at Land O’ Lakes Jail and is expected to have a first-appearance hearing in front of a judge this afternoon.
Deputies responded to the couple’s home after a 911 call just before 10 p.m. Tuesday night and found nobody home, a report states. The family was at the sheriff’s office.
McGuire drove himself, his son and wife, Christine McGuire-Wolfe, to the New Port Richey Jail to report the altercation, according to a report.
Joseph McGuire reportedly told deputies his wife took their 3-month-old son for three days last week and didn’t tell him where they went, so he wanted to take the baby away. When he tried to leave their home, she tried to stop him and called 911 while trying to get his keys, a report states. After he got the baby in a car seat, she hopped in the truck and wouldn’t get out, so he drove and she tried to grab the steering wheel, Joseph McGuire reportedly told deputies.
During the altercation, he said, he pushed his wife in self-defense.
McGuire-Wolfe, however, told deputies a slightly different story.
They were talking, she said, and her husband grew angry.
“If I can’t have my son, you can’t either,” he told her, according to the report.
McGuire-Wolfe told deputies she feared for her son’s safety.
“How far do you want to take this. … I’ll kill you,” she told deputies her husband shouted.
Joseph McGuire then pushed his forearm against her throat and pinned her to a doorway, according to the report, and then against a wall, twisting her arm while she tried to call 911. Her husband put their son in his truck.
At some point, she reportedly told deputies, her husband threw her to the floor, kicked her head and an ankle. While she got to her feet, she pushed the alarm on her keychain, a report states, and her husband grabbed her eyeglasses off her face, threw them across the garage and then started slamming her hand against a counter so she would drop her keys.
She jumped in the truck because she was worried about her son, the report states, and McGuire told her he was driving them to the sheriff’s office because “they would believe him and she would never see her son again.”
Joseph McGuire told deputies, according to a report, his wife called 911 and made up the story about him threatening her.
Deputies noted some small cuts on McGuire and blood on his shirt. Mcguire-Wolf had blood smeared on her face and hands and also had several small cuts. Her neck and behind her right ear were red, according to the report.
