Officers investigated a case involving the alleged abuse of a 7-year-old child, but the father says he was just disciplining a kid whose behavior was out of control.
It all started with a call from Lawrence County JFS asking officers to investigate a child abuse report. CPS workers and an officer headed to the mom’s home. She said her son had come home from a visit with his dad covered in bruises.
The boy said his dad and the dad’s girlfriend had spanked him with their hands, a belt, and other objects because he had put a hole in the wall.
A Lawrence County Deputy went to talk with the father, who said that while he usually punished his son with time-outs, the boy’s behavior had escalated recently, with him putting holes in the wall and shooting animals with BB guns. He said he spanked the child with his hand or belt exactly as his parents had when he was a kid. He also said the boy’s mother had lost custody of him four years ago because SHE had abused the child.
The man said the boy had ripped a towel rack off the wall, so he put him in a corner and “busted his butt.” The boy then went into his room and put a hole in the wall, so he ‘wore his ass out.’
He said he worried the family could be evicted for the boy’s behavior but was surprised when he saw the marks he’d left on the child and had promised to never do it again.
The dad said his father had abused him as a child, and he’d sworn never to act that way. Officers attached their conversations with both parents to the report and left it in the hands of JFS and the prosecutor’s office.