Thursday, September 3, 2009

2 Year Old Slapped by Strange Man in Wal-Mart

What would you do if a 61-year old stranger came up to you and your screaming baby in Aisle 7 of Wal-Mart and told you:" If you don't shut your baby up, I will" ???

And then what would you do if he actually came back 5 minutes later and slapped your baby 5 times on the face!!!!

What is this world coming to? I know that babies can be annoying, especially in places where one can't escape (like a plane), but this is outrageous! This man must be mentally ill, although the video doesn't mention anything about that. He's definitely lacking in the impulse control department and also lacking in boundaries. Why didn't he just walk away?? Again, he's not trapped in Aisle 7!

Jeez!

Here is the article:

Imagine this for a shopping nightmare: Your 2-year-old throws a tantrum at Wal-Mart, and a strange man walks up to her and slaps her across the face to shut her up.

This happened to a Georgia mom on Monday. Sonya Mathews' daughter, Paige, was crying in the store when 61-year-old Roger Stephens told Mathews that if she didn't make her kid stop crying, he would. When little Paige continued to cry, he walked up to her and slapped her across the face several times. After he did it, he told Mathews, "See, I told you I would shut her up."
Mathews screamed at him and called for security. Another shopper stopped him. He was arrested and charged with cruelty to a child, a felony, and is being held without bail. Paige suffered no injuries, except for some redness in the face. Of course, that says nothing of the psychological injuries she might have experienced.Read more: http://www.momlogic.com/2009/09/shopper_slaps_a_toddler_for_crying_at_wal-mart.php#ixzz0Q4dh5hN0

Here's the video, which embedding is disabled so I can't post it here, sorry:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9rCNjbQsoh8


And here is his picture. He actually DOES look like the type that would abuse a child. Usually one can't really finger abusers based on looks. But this guy....

4 comments:

LegalMist said...

He looked familiar but I couldn't place where I had seen him before.... then I remembered, I think I saw his picture in the dictionary once when I looked up the word "asshole."

Sha Zam- said...

I'm ill. Bad behaving adults do not belong near children.

Anonymous said...

Not to blame the victim (though I'm about to). I'm curious why the mom didn't alert the store authorities after the verbal threat! I guess we're all so intimidated by others' responses to our children. The other day a friend of mine was told the authorities would be called because she wasn't holding her 4yo's hand in a parking lot (though her 10 yo was). Her kids started crying! It was awful.danicuz

Tami said...

They would have had to pull me off of the 61 year old for beating him after he hit my child like that...mental or not I'm sure I would have lost it on the man.