If I'd have seen him punch a two year old I would have ripped his head off of his shoulders.. Nothing makes me more angry than people beating children. I have a two year old, and if anyone EVER tried that shit with her they would be dead. Straight up, no joke.
Man, this sounds like there is no good way out.. You did the right thing by calling the police.. and I can't believe he didn't get attempted murder for trying to smother her.. Probably couldn't be held up in court because, other than one witness, there isn't enough evidence to support it.
I can't say that I know the situation that you are in, but I think I understand it. What you need to do is cut and run.. get the hell out of there. But you feel that if you do, they will get right back together and he will beat the shit out of her from now on.. which is what will happen if she doesn't end up dead. Women who are beaten have weird things going on upstairs.. What this chick needs is councelling. Call up a battered women's shelter or something and get her to go. They will be able to help with the kid situation too. One thing you have to know is, you alone cannot fix this. Not when she is stupid enough to keep going back.
All the while your abusive friend is going to be angry with you for separating him from his family. You will become another target of his rage. Men who beat women are usually total pussies when it comes to confronting other men sho he'll try to shoot you or cut you or something instead of going toe to toe with you.
You can't win this one man.. No matter how you look at it. You stay, you stay mixed in with this shit. You leave, the chick and kids get the hell beat out of 'em. It is HER choice to stick around. She is endangering her children by sticking around, and for that, I feel sorry for the children. Call CPS and report his ass, stick her in a battered woman's shelter, and run like hell. Get the hell out of there and don't ever look back. You will have done your part.
You remind me alot of my younger cousin. Pretty smart kid, strong body, healthy.. Lives in a bombed out trailer with 6 pit bulls with his "wife" and kid. (its someone else's wife, they aren't divorced). He could make a clean cut kid, but instead, he hangs around the wrong people, and they drag him down. They steal from him, they do drugs with him.. He has even become a small-time drug dealer. He has 6 pit bulls because he feels he needs the protection. Every time he goes to jail he waits for "his boys" to show up. They never do. The rest of the family is all clean cut, living well, and having a good life. He is living up to his neck in shit and struggling because of the company he keeps. I've told him time and time again to drop his little circle of friends and life would get better for him, but he doesn't.. He is with the girl that he has now because he saved her from an abusive relationship and she clung to his ass.. Nothing wrong with that other than she brought with her a ghetto ass family and all the wonderful things that come with that. I finally cut him off.. I don't talk to him anymore, I don't see him.. I don't want him coming around my house with his crack headed friends.. They can all go have a ghetto orgy elsewhere.
I think you are the good kid mixed in with the wrong crowd. I'd move and start over if I were you. Hell, I did that earlier in my life and it did me a world of good. I was headed straight down. Quit high school, hanging out with a bunch of druggies and a girlfriend whose family lived in the ghetto and smoked pot all day.. I had moved in with her family. My brother called me one day and told me to come to NM and start over, quit being a dumb ass. I did. I moved, cleaned up, got a new circle of friends and straightened my shit out. Finished high school, met a wonderful girl and ended up marrying her a couple of years later. And now, life is good. If it weren't for my brother, I'd probably be shacked up with my cousin and his pitbulls and our "wives"....
Just start over man.