By Leon Worden/SCVNEWS.com

Santa Clarita Valley sheriff’s deputies responding to reports of a child being beaten in a home in Saugus got a handful when the subject of their investigation turned on them.

Reports came in shortly after 10 p.m. Thursday of a child screaming inside a residence in the 27600 block of Susan Beth Way. Deputies forced their way into the home and the suspect – a bald, white male with no shirt, probably in his 20s – became combative. A fight ensued and a deputy wrestled him to the ground.

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The deputy was uninjured in the scuffle – and apparently neither was the suspect, because he was detained in the back of a patrol car despite the presence of an ambulance.

SCV Sheriff’s Sgt. Gary Miller later said it turned out not to be a case of child abuse as deputies initially thought. The child was unharmed, Miller said, and the suspect was booked on a misdemeanor charge of resisting arrest.