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As I was waiting for my child after school today, I happened to glance into my rear view mirror and witness a woman punch, and I mean PUNCH, square in the face, a child sitting in the seat next to her. While my brain took a sec to wrap itself around what I thought I'd just seen, SHE DID IT AGAIN. Meanwhile my child had gotten into the car so I tried to follow her but another car pulled out in front of me and I lost her. It was an act of God. I was totally not thinking clearly at that point. Have any of you ever witnessed anything like that? What would you have done?
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I couldn't get it! She was behind me and then when my child got into the car she pulled around me. That's why I was trying to follow her but then the other car got in the way. My blood was boiling so bad I don't know if I could have controlled myself. Also we were in front of the high school so if I'd jumped out of my car and pulled her out of hers (as was my first instinct) it wouldn't have looked too great for me to get killed in front of my own children.
Last edited by SaltyDog
I would have been highly upset if I'd witnessed it. I would have probably called 911. It's best to let authority deal with it than handling things yourself unless you want to also end up in jail for disorderly conduct!

I agree about looking for the car at school more often. Get as much info as possible including descriptions of the offender. If it was me, once I had all the info I could get, I'd call DHR.
quote:
Originally posted by tcf531:
many years ago I saw a man backhand his small child HARD in a grocery store. I jumped the guy and we both ended up in jail.


What happened when you went to court? Thanks for taking up for a child and putting yourself at risk. I have called 911 before and reported incidents.

Is it possible Salty for you to go to school early today in order to get the car/tag info? I would then report it to DHS/school/police.
quote:
Originally posted by SaltyDog:
As I was waiting for my child after school today, I happened to glance into my rear view mirror and witness a woman punch, and I mean PUNCH, square in the face, a child sitting in the seat next to her. While my brain took a sec to wrap itself around what I thought I'd just seen, SHE DID IT AGAIN. Meanwhile my child had gotten into the car so I tried to follow her but another car pulled out in front of me and I lost her. It was an act of God. I was totally not thinking clearly at that point. Have any of you ever witnessed anything like that? What would you have done?


Could you give more details like what school...what kind of car...what color car...a description of the woman?Did you ask your child if he/she knew the child being picked up by this woman?These children could be in real danger.
That's what I was going to say Hound. The principal--or whoever does parking lot duty--becomes really familar with which car goes with what kid. If you described the woman and what kind of car it was to the school officials, they might be able to figure out who it was. It might be too late to do anything about this particular incident, but at least it would alert them to watch for signs of abuse.
As I look down at my desk I can see tears falling onto it. This makes me SAD! I feel so sick for these poor kids. If the lady is willing to punch a kid in the face twice on school property what is she willing to do behind closed doors. I think she needs her a** kicked by someone who is bigger than her and intimidates her as much as she obvioulsy intimidates that poor child. I do not give a rat's behind what that child did he/she does not deserve to be punched! I would be upset if I saw two kids punching eachother in the school yard... I hate to see kids get hurt no matter who or what it is by... but for an adult to ABUSE a child makes me enraged! Please, I urge you, when you are at the school today sit and wait to see that car and please write down everything you can and get the autorities involved. Please don't wait until you see it happen again. You never know how far someone can take something and it could be fatal, especially for a child. How terrible. Adults sometimes don't know there own strength when playing around but when someone is angry enough to punch a kid... there is no telling what they are capable of. PLEASE help this child/children. Please let us know if you are even able to see the car again. I am sure you will though if it picks up children at that school. Poor poor babies. I am saying a prayer for the child. What terror that poor baby must live in. Once, when I taught children, I had a little girl who was just down right independnet and wanted to do things her own way and did not like authority. One day, her dad came to get her, and I had had enough of it that day and I told him how she had behaved. He pulled her pants down in front of me and spanked her so hard with a belt. She was crying and screaming and he just kept screaming for her to shut up. I tried to step in and he told me to shut up. I do not have a problem with anyone disciplining their own children but sometimes it is too much, in this case, it was. I reported him to the proper authorities and I never told on that sweet little girl again.
You had better composure than I would ever have been able to control.
That's one thing I can not sit back & witness & not respond.
I may have a bad temper at times, but I would probably went & jerked her up out of that car
& gave her a dose of her own medicine.
I can afford a $75.00 assault charge as long as it ends the abusing mom up with some charges as well.
I know, It probably wouldn't be the right thing for me to do, but I couldn't sit back & watch it happen. I just couldn't.
Salty, I'm almost at a loss for words. I hate that you had to witness this horrible scene but maybe the act of God is that there is a witness, You. I agree with many of the others, contact the school authorities and then keep you eyes open for the car to get a better discription. Please keep us informed.
quote:
many years ago I saw a man backhand his small child HARD in a grocery store. I jumped the guy and we both ended up in jail.



What was the outcome?

I do not know that I could control myself if I witnessed such a thing. Assuming I could not, what kind of time would I be looking at?

Anyone familiar with the law with regards to this kind of thing?
Salty, you earned a lot of respect in my eyes! The best thing to do is what the others are telling you and get more info and watch her.

Me? Oh dear. I am afraid I could not have been an adult as you were. I'd probably be in jail and on my way to prison. God looks out for idiots like me - you did the right thing by practicing self control. Just watch little she devil mean azz abusing witch - she'll do something like that again. Evidently she doesn't have any self control either! Wink
jjulie. I don't deserve your respect. I WAS trying to confront her(I had my kids in the car- how irresponsible is THAT???) and if I'd gotten ahold of her right there it would have been right in front of the entire student body of Sheffield High School. She was Black, about 50-65 years old. I am White. I know what would have happened if every Black teenager in Sheffield saw a White woman get into it with an older Black woman. I hate to put a racial spin on things, but that is a fact. The act of God was the third car pulling out in front of me so that I lost track of the puncher. I was on the lookout this morning as I will be this afternoon. When I see her again, I will write down the tag number and tell the principal at L.E. Willson as I'm sure this child was from that school.
Salty, I witnessed a similar incident between a teenage girl and her stepfather last week. The most shocking thing to me was how many adults sided with the stepfather immediately. This is what I wrote on my blog about it:

I am still outraged about an incident that happened at the library Thursday afternoon. For some background, let me tell you about this group of girls who frequents the library. I think of these as the "sassy girls". Some might call them fast. They're not the group of sweet girls who dutifully check out every book I put on the New Books shelf in the teen area, and they don't attend my programs. These girls mainly come to the library to flirt with boys and check their myspace pages. However, as the teen librarian, I have tried to connect with them. My attempts at friendliness are most met with blank stares or eye rolls.



So Thursday afternoon I'm sitting at the reference desk when two of the girls, S and K, who are using a computer, suddenly shriek and run at top speed across the library. I lamely called, "No running in the library", then heard one of the girls screaming, a grown man yelling, and a loud crash. This occurred out of my sight behind some shelves, so I hurried over to see what happened. A man was directing one of the girls, K, out of the library, while screaming at the top of his lungs at her. A woman who I assumed to be K's mother trailed along behind.



I asked a group of teenage boys who had seen the incident what had happened. These boys are pretty unflappable. A fistfight is a source of entertainment for them, but now they looked stunned and scared. "That's messed up what he did to her", one of them said. I asked them what happened and they said that the man was beating the girl. I immediately called the police. Meanwhile, the man continued to scream in the girl's face on the sidewalk in front of the library, while the girl's mother stood by. A crowd of adults, teens, and children began to gather. To my horror, the adults in the crowd were siding with the man! It seems that the girl had run away from home and he had found her at the library and was telling her what a ****ty piece of garbage she was. What a ****, hanging out at the library, right? One woman said, "She'll be thankful for this. She could have wound up in a ditch!" So the options for this girl are to live with this crazy monster or to wind up in a ditch? No wonder she was willing to risk the ditch.



The man continued to scream at the girl at top volume until the police came. At this point I went back inside. Someone told me that S, K's friend, was in the bathroom and was very upset. I went in there to check on her and asked her what was going on. She said that the man was K's stepfather and that he was physically and verbally abusive to her. She didn't know what to do. Should she tell the police what she knew about K's stepfather? Like me, she was upset that everyone was taking his side. She was terrified of going outside, afraid of what K's stepfather would do to her. She was afraid that she would be arrested and sent to juvenile hall because she happened to be friends with a runaway. I suggested that she call her parents and ask them for advice. She called and her mother answered. "Mom, if I know that K's stepfather is abusing her, should I tell someone?" she asked. Her mother sighed and said, "Just stay out of it." A female police officer came and talked to S to find out what she had seen. As I walked away, I could hear the annoyance in the police officer's voice at having to deal with the situation.



I was and am still outraged by this situation and the responses of most of the adults who witnessed it. Am I the only one who was raised to believe that men do not put their hands on women in anger, period, no excuses? Do these people really think that because this dude happens to be married to K's mother that he, a grown man, has the right to assault a 14 year old CHILD? And don't get me started on the piece of crap mother. I've never seen this woman in here with her kids checking out books or helping them with their homework, but she can find time to come in here with her husband so he can slap the kid around? I suspect she's been too busy running around town trying to find her next husband to actually raise her children. And people, if your kid is running away from home, it's not because they're some inherently bad seed---it's because YOU failed them somewhere. YOU screwed them up. YOU failed to give them love or discipline or some combination of the two. Is it any wonder that we live in a culture where teenage girls think it was okay for Chris Brown to beat the crap out of Rihanna, that she deserved it because she threw his car keys out of the window? (BTW, this morning I read that Rihanna has gone back to that jerk.) As children, we are constantly told, "If you or someone you know is being abused, tell an adult", but when they try to tell us, we ignore him. I guess it is easier to put our heads in the sand than to contemplate the horrific lives that some children live.



I became a librarian because my mother was a school librarian and I saw the impact that she had on teens. So many people have told me things like, "Your mother was the first person who told me I was smart" and "Your mother was the only person who told me that I could go to college and make something of myself." I remember some of her favorite students--the pregnant 16-year-old girl, the girl with a mustache who wore camo all the time, the boy who had made it to ninth grade with none of his teachers realizing that he was illiterate. She loved the misfits and troubled kids. It is hard for some of us to imagine, but many children and teens do not have a single adult in their life they can trust. They have never had anyone tell them that they are smart, that they can be anything they want to be. If anything positive comes out of this situation, maybe it will be that this group of "sassy girls" will realize that I am on their side. The next time I see them, I'm going to tell them that if they have a problem and want to talk to an adult without being judged, they can talk to me. I can't solve every problem, but maybe I can at least point them toward some kind of help.

As an update, my coworkers said that the police and a social worker stayed for several hours at the library and interviewed the family. The police issued the stepfather a citation for something, although I'm not sure what. Disturbing the peace? Being a waste of space?
Salty i hope you get the tag # and are able to get in touch with someone who can do something about this.Marion you did the right thing in calling the police.Even though it might not have mattered much(With the policewoman`s annoyance).I on the other hand would become quite irate if I saw something like that.That is one thing I can`t stomache is someone hitting a child or woman.
Marion, I'm glad there are people like you that will protect our children. I hope you stay in close contact with this girl to make sure that nothing happens to her. Since the police were called, did the school also notify DHR or will that be up to the police. I hope they did notify them. Please follow up on this.

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