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Sellersburg man arrested for alleged spanking
newstribune.net ^ | 06/13/07 | JENNIFER RIGG

Posted on 06/17/2007 7:28:37 AM PDT by TornadoAlley3

A Sellersburg man was arrested and charged with battery for allegedly spanking his son with a leather belt.

Sellersburg Police Department Deputy Chief Donnie Ross said the 7-year-old child’s mother called police Sunday night when he wouldn’t stop crying after suffering a spanking from his father, 46-year-old Ernest E. Haycraft of the 1900 block of Lincoln Drive. Haycraft told police the boy was being punished for purposely breaking one of his toys and that he only struck him “three or four times,” Ross said.

Officers, however, arrested Haycraft after seeing a raised, red welt on the boy’s buttocks.

“(The officers) saw that it was bad enough abuse, and that he needed to be arrested,” Ross said of the incident.

Haycraft has never before been arrested by the Sellersburg Police Department, and Ross thought it to be “a singular incident that hasn’t happened in the past.”

The investigation has been turned over to Child Protective Services of Clark County. A phone call placed to that office Tuesday afternoon was not returned, but a spokeswoman did confirm that a caseworker was investigating the incident. Ross said officers took pictures of the boy’s injuries and submitted them to CPS.

Clark County Deputy Prosecutor Shelley Marble — who specializes in crimes against children — said these types of cases do come across her desk from time to time.

“I probably get about one or two of these (types of cases) a month,” she said from her office Tuesday afternoon.

The problem, she said, is that what police officers find to be probable cause for an arrest often isn’t enough for

prosecutors to get a conviction.

“If a mom whips a kid with a belt, and the kid says it happened and the mom says it happened but there are no marks, then that’s enough for (police) to substantiate inappropriate discipline, but not enough for us to file charges,” she said.

“These types of cases depend on a lot of different variables,” she continued. “You do have parents that are disciplining their child and then you have beating — there is a difference. You have to look at each case individually.”

Marble said she had not yet been informed of the charges preliminary filed against Haycraft and that she likely wouldn’t be until CPS completed its investigation.

Ross said Sellersburg police have, in the past, made similar arrests “where parents have, in our opinion, overreacted to misbehavior and gone above and beyond what we would consider normal discipline.”

“They don’t happen often, but they do happen,” he said.


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Government; News/Current Events; US: Indiana
KEYWORDS: arrested; discipline; parenting; sellersburg; spanking
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To: TornadoAlley3
My mom’s implement of choice was a whiffle ball bat (you know, the long skinny yellow plastic ones..) - it gave her an extra 32 inch extension when chasing us around trying to swat us! Made up for the edge we had in speed and maneuverability....!!! Turned out fine and my mom (rest her soul) did not need the nannystate to raise her kids.
81 posted on 06/18/2007 9:03:29 AM PDT by jettester (I got paid to break 'em - not fly 'em)
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To: John Leland 1789
Do you mean that your children have defeated you? I am already approaching “old” age, my wife and I having raised seven children . . . using the rod when necessary. We have already watched the principles of Proverbs, and the Bible as a whole, work marvelously in our home. We will not be humbled in the way you suppose, because we seek no exaltation, except for our Saviour Jesus Christ. Exalting Him requires obedience to His Word, including in the area of child rearing.

You are seriously creepy.

82 posted on 06/28/2007 4:15:07 PM PDT by closet freeper
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To: closet freeper
John Leland: “Do you mean that your children have defeated you? I am already approaching “old” age, my wife and I having raised seven children . . . using the rod when necessary. We have already watched the principles of Proverbs, and the Bible as a whole, work marvelously in our home. We will not be humbled in the way you suppose, because we seek no exaltation, except for our Saviour Jesus Christ. Exalting Him requires obedience to His Word, including in the area of child rearing.”

Closet Freeper: “You are seriously creepy.”

John Leland: Yes, we know. Those of us who hold on to biblicist Christianity and endeavor, by God’s Grace, to practice it in our homes, our businesses and in life’s affairs, will appear increasingly strange (creepier and creepier) to those who just flow with the tide of the world; it’s course (Ephesians 2:2) The world has a course. Christians are told not to take it; not to walk according to it. See also Romans 12:1-3. Governments will try harder and harder to force God’s children to follow the world’s course.

As Christians obey God with regard to their life patterns and course, and in the upbringing and educating of our children, we appear more and more as strangers and pilgrims (1 Peter 2:11). Creepier and creepier we will be in your eyes unless one day you discover your need of Jesus Christ and flee to Him. But that might sound creepy to you as well.

It has been happening in some states that people have said that the state has an interest in protecting the children from our creepiness, and they use child protective services to remove children from creepy Christian homes with false accusations of child abuse, not educating their children, etc.

When in the States, we even have to keep our creepy children in the house at 3:00 pm when the public school bus stops in front of our house. This is because the school bus driver, listening to the public school system about us creepy home schoolers, might say, “See, those kids are not in school!” and she will file reports, as she is told to do when she suspects kids not going to school. A bus driver actually did this to us once, and we had authorities at our door. They were very nice followers of the course of this world (Ephesians 2); WE were the creepy ones, of course.The kids getting off the bus bade throwing garbage on our front lawn, are, of course, the very sane, well-educated ones, with baggy britches that they have to hold up by keeping their hands on their crotch. These are the sane un-creepy kids with tatoos and lip rings and tongue rings. Some of those world-course gir;s look like sumu wrestlers in tank tops with oily ratty hair. So, us creepy people have to find each other like insects crawling around through the societal frame of modern society with its passing trends. Yep, CREEPY!

83 posted on 06/28/2007 5:38:46 PM PDT by John Leland 1789
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To: lentulusgracchus

inappropriate discipline, the filing of charges - give me a break! my old man would be serving about a hundred back to back life sentences if charges were filed every time he took his strap to my backside. my dad was a good parent who taught me right from wrong - sometimes very painfully. but no matter how painful, i knew he did it because he cared about me and wanted me to grow up to be the responsible adult that i am. the law should stay out of it unless there is clearly abuse going on.


84 posted on 06/29/2007 5:31:16 AM PDT by gma1000
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To: gma1000
It's all about parental expectations, isn't it? And conveying parental sincerity that those minimums of honesty and honest effort will be rendered by the child.

That black leather belt was awfully sincere, lol.

The only part that rang false every time was the old "this is going to hurt me worse than it is you!" lolol

85 posted on 06/29/2007 11:59:11 AM PDT by lentulusgracchus ("Whatever." -- sinkspur)
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To: John Leland 1789
Very interesting post. I guess you will have identified with those Amish parents in Iowa a few years ago whose kids were very literally subjected to a state "roundup".

I'd trust the education imparted by those ruler-straight Amishmen long before I trusted whatever passes for a school system in Des Moines.

My cousin and his wife are both very educated and, from your point of view, worldly, making their way as they do in the field of academics. But they were thinking of both his career and their boys' education when they pulled up stakes long sunk in the Dallas-Fort Worth area and betook themselves to a small town in the Great Plains, he to join the local college administration and she the library staff, but partly and importantly to move their boys out of the suburbicarian school system with its drugs and vices and into a cleaner, simpler, more backward social scene that more closely resembled the one we went to school in 40 years ago. No drugs, no guns, no gangs, no girls trying to learn to be skank hoes and party girls, or for that matter, LUGS, and no rainbow clubs with SIECUS/GLSEN sponsors, pederast facilitators and fashion-forward, amazingly witty and charming student advisors.

They found the "eject" lever and pulled it.

86 posted on 06/29/2007 12:12:25 PM PDT by lentulusgracchus ("Whatever." -- sinkspur)
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To: lentulusgracchus

You don’t get it. The state wants your kid to screw up so they can assume control. Once your kid goes into the juvie system, the state is in your lives and POCKETBOOK.


87 posted on 06/29/2007 12:21:02 PM PDT by Scotsman will be Free (11C - Indirect fire, infantry - High angle hell - We will bring you, FIRE)
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To: GovernmentShrinker
This was one of the children’s parents who requested government intervention. Yes, sometimes a parent will make up or exaggerate accusations to get back at the other parent for some unrelated matter.

Or to undermine the other parent with the child in some sick family dynamic that neither courts nor police are equipped to adjudicate. Or will you assert now that governmental units are omnicompetent, or merely omnipotent, over the life of the family?

That’s what we have trials for.

Have you ever been to trial and paid a lawyer up front because he demanded ten, twelve, fifteen K up front before you went to trial? A trial? For this?

But if a child’s mother is feeling the need to call police over a beating that the child’s father delivered in their home, then it’s right for the police and courts to get involved.

One welt. One single welt, and the cops are involved because Daddy took his belt off.

Seriously, the opinions you've expressed on this thread constitute about 25% of what is wrong with this country. You are seriously, seriously screwed-up on this issue.

88 posted on 06/29/2007 12:24:38 PM PDT by lentulusgracchus ("Whatever." -- sinkspur)
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To: proudmilitarymrs
My father would make me go to his closet and get one of his belts. I remember standing there looking and wondering which one would hurt less.

The worst experience I ever remember was the one day when I was about 16 and called my mother a 'bitch' - my father didn't use a belt that time. I remember when he found out he called me out of my room and asked me "What did you call my wife?" - growing up my father whenever talking to me or any of the kids had always referred to my mother by saying "your mother". I got punched in the mouth and I will never forget it. More importantly, I learned my lesson the hard way.

89 posted on 06/29/2007 12:26:47 PM PDT by expatguy (http://laotze.blogspot.com/)
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To: TornadoAlley3

yeah but have you ever had to take a bite out of a bar of Ivory soap?


90 posted on 06/29/2007 12:28:34 PM PDT by expatguy (http://laotze.blogspot.com/)
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To: TornadoAlley3

My dad told me about a woman he had been married to before I was born. She had two children who were impossible to handle. After doing everything he could to deal with them, he raised a couple of whelts when they threw their brand new cowboy boots into the Colorado River. They suddenly behaved very well. Even their biological dad said he was impressed by the improvement in their behavior.


91 posted on 06/29/2007 12:32:45 PM PDT by HungarianGypsy
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To: closet freeper

Go back to your closet.


92 posted on 06/29/2007 12:33:47 PM PDT by Scotsman will be Free (11C - Indirect fire, infantry - High angle hell - We will bring you, FIRE)
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Comment #93 Removed by Moderator

Comment #94 Removed by Moderator

To: expatguy

LAVA.


95 posted on 06/29/2007 2:47:16 PM PDT by TornadoAlley3
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To: lentulusgracchus

I don’t think it’s me that’s screwed, but many of the courts that handle these cases certainly are. What was missing from this story was whether the mother approved of the removal. Since she initiated the law enforcement intervention, she probably did, since there is no allegation that she did anything wrong and thus she would have been allowed to keep the children as long as the father left the house (which presumably the court could have required).

The legal system can’t just ignore parents who contact it and allege that a crime has been committed against their child. That would only lead to more domestic violence and more parental abductions of children. What it CAN do — and should do, but often doesn’t — is require much higher standards of proof for taking action against a parent on anything longer than a short term, emergency basis. And they should get hired, adversarial lawyers out of the picture, partly due to the appalling expense which the innocent party can’t always afford, and also because it tends to further polarize an already adversarial situation, and that clearly doesn’t benefit anyone (except the lawyers who are collecting their fees).


96 posted on 06/29/2007 4:34:37 PM PDT by GovernmentShrinker
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To: expatguy

How come all those years of discipline with a belt resulted in a 16 year old who was calling his mother a “bitch”? Sounds like the belt approach didn’t work too well.


97 posted on 06/29/2007 4:38:22 PM PDT by GovernmentShrinker
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To: GovernmentShrinker

All I remember is being upset with my mother about something and then trying to act tough.


98 posted on 06/29/2007 9:25:00 PM PDT by expatguy (http://laotze.blogspot.com/)
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To: lentulusgracchus

never got the “this is going to hurt me more....” routine. good thing because i probably would have mouthed off with a “yeah, right” reply and then would have gotten double. a price was paid for all bad deeds.


99 posted on 07/01/2007 11:51:36 PM PDT by gma1000
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To: lentulusgracchus
Or 15 years from now the kids pulls a weapon and kills the cop.
100 posted on 07/01/2007 11:56:43 PM PDT by OKIEDOC (Kalifornia, a red state wannabe. I don't take Ex Lax I just read the New York Times.)
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