[yldstrk]

Remember that Irish Traveler gal that was videotaped beating her four year old in a Target parking lot? The four year old girl had somehow interfered with mom returning something to the Target so mom buckled her into the carseat, looked furtively around and proceeded to beat the living daylights out of her. they showed it on the national news, tracked down the mom and arrested the mom, took the little girl into protective custody. I think the car was a brand new huge Toyota SUV.

[Finny]

You know, I never really believed that video tape. Remember that when they took that little kid to the hospital, there was no sign of physical trauma. I have spent quite a lot of time around Travellers, and striking children is NOT DONE. Scaring children, pretetnding like you're going to strike them in order to get to to "behave," yes, but actually striking or "abusing" a child in any way, is I think the single biggest no-no in Traveller culture. After that video came out, I chatted with a law enforcement officer in, I think, North Carolina, and like me he was skeptical.

We chuckled about that video, as it appeared to him, as it appeared to me, that none of the hits seemed to connect with the child in question, and it was also very inconsistent with Travelers EXCEPT as a means to frighten the kid into fear of being beaten. Like a puff adder puffs up in size to scare his enemies, Traveller moms may pretend and make a lot of noise and flurry to scare their kids. Therefore I was not in the least surprised to read that the kid had zero signs of physical trauma.