A Port Washington mom faces 30 years in prison and $100,000 in fines after being charged with hitting her two children with a belt.
The 38-year-old woman was charged in Ozaukee County court on Tuesday with two counts of physical abuse of a child recklessly causing great bodily harm. The woman is not being named to protect the children's identities.
The 12-year-old boy told police that about 6:30 a.m. Monday his mother used a leather belt and hit his forearm, leaving a mark that measured 6 to 8 inches in length that caused him "pain," according to the criminal complaint.
The daughter, who turned 14 the day after the incident, told police she tried to intervene while her mom was hitting her brother, the complaint said. Her mother then grabbed her by the hair and puller her out of the house using "very bad words," toward the girl. The mother drove her to Upper Lake Park where she struck the daughter with the belt, also on her forearm.
The woman shows no prior criminal record in CCAP. She is out of custody on a $1,000 signature bond and is expected to appear in court at 10 a.m. Feb. 12 for status hearing.
is. Seems more a realm for social services than a felony charge. Can't judge the matter without the mother's account. I disagree with using a belt although it didn't affect me much being punished with one. Punishment was meted out because I needed it not because my parents were irrational or emotionally unsound. I'm curious as yo the mothers account. Printing this article without her reference is a bias. Kind of sad.
If the facts of this work out that this woman only used a belt against her son as some sort of physical punishment, then we're in a grey area, sure. Some will say it's fine, some will say it isn't. Then the comments make sense. But the allegations (again, if they prove to be true) have this woman TAKING A SECOND CHILD OUT OF THE HOUSE FOR INTERVENING, REMOVING HER TO ANOTHER LOCATION, AND THEN BEATING HER WITH THE BELT FOR HER INTERVENTION. In case you missed it, that is the story here. That is where I can't fathom how anyone can defend her. And that is something that many commenting here seem to be completely overlooking. Is that normal? Was that a part of your household? That your parent would remove you from the house by your hair for saying that the parent went too far, the parent calling you expletives, and then (once outside of the moment) still beating you with a belt for intervening in the other child's discipline?
No matter how trying children can be (and, believe me, I know how trying they can be), it is the job of a responsible parent/caregiver to be the voice of reason. Of course you're going to lose your temper sometimes - then you give yourself a time-out until you can think calmly and rationally, just as you would when another adult makes you angry. We want to raise responsible people, and responsibility only comes when you are given respect and rights.
(note the sarcasm) Chris, you argue that the end result of NOT beating your children with a belt is that they run around like delinquents. Is that how you feel? As and for whether this woman goes to jail - that is for a court to decide (again, first we must see that the allegations are true). And that will be decided with a whole lot more information than what we know. Maybe the mom was tiny, the kid large, and the kid attacked her physically. Maybe the mom was a fitness guru, the kid handicapped, and the kid used the wrong spoon to eat his dinner. At this point we don't know the facts - as you and others keep repeating. But we do know the allegations, and from those allegations, we can decide if this behavior, if proven, is ever justifiable. Because of the second half of the allegations, if the allegations have any basis in fact, then this isn't a witch hunt to charge the woman. This (if proven) is a parent that took whatever might be a grey area and went nuts with it by what she did to the second child. There is no justification for that. So charge her, find out the remaining back story, and THEN decide responsibility and punishment. And yes, everything I'm saying is qualified - the first thing is to decide if the allegations are truthful.
There's always more to the story, but when a child's isn't behaving properly, its not an excuse for the parent to cross the line and behave in an even more out of control manner to try to compensate. You wind up with a mess. Using words a few different ways here .... Discipline can take many forms ... but to properly apply discipline to a child, usually involves some emotional discipline from the parent for it to be at all effective. Have a kid that gravitates towards being loud? Guess what? Outshouting them and getting more emotional isn't the right way to go, it just leads to worse behavior, and attempting to apply physical discipline when overly emotional is about the worst thing a parent can do. You see it manifest itself in a lot of places nowadays, road rage, random fights, senseless confrontations because people feel "disrespected". Guessing that played in with this situation, daughter telling mom she's gone too far, mom still enraged, the cone of anger turns on the daughter. Yes, it sure seems like abuse.
By your logic, we shouldn't be charging people with murder because, we don't know their back story or situation. We shouldn't be charging people with domestic violence because, hey, we don't know the circumstances. There's a fine line between a fight in a relationship and domestic abuse through other people's eyes, right? We don't condone that either, but maybe there's a reason we just don't see - no sense destroying a family on that, right? You honestly think that these allegations are not worth bringing charges on because we don't know the back story?
The DA's office doesn't charge people lightly with crimes. Charges come based on what evidence is gathered, and what sort of surrounding information may be available. I'm going to wager that a felony charge for someone with no prior public criminal record means that there may have been some confidential investigations going on (eg. Child Services) and that while there is no criminal or arrest record, there may have been some other stuff happening that isn't visible to the rest of us.
The allegations here do not appear to meet the legal definition for great bodily harm. In fact, a "mark" could be nothing more than a temporary red mark on the skin that is gone in a few minutes, depending on the person. Great bodily harm requires some thing far more serious, such as a broken bone or disfigurement.
.................... NObama 2012 11:35 am on Sunday, February 3, 2013 I would bet that the woman that hit her kids signed the recall petition ..........
I would bet that the person behind NObama 2012 is a judgmental person with little discernment. And I would base this on the above statements of ignorance. Please don't prove that Oz County is full of a lot of uneducated opinionated bigots. Just don't speak, or type... at all.
On another note. Kids today are taught in school that if they feel threatened they should call police, Teachers also watch for signs of abuse. My son walked into a display case at a store and had bruised eye. The school called CPS, I endured a "witch hunt" and I was not alone. Targetted because we were single moms. FIN