Seeing the pics, and reading what is known, the guy clearly went over the top. None of us knows whether this is a pattern or if he did it out of rage. I'll wait to see, but what he did was over the top.
Intended or not, it was over the top. Welts and bleeding are over the top, remember, those pics are days AFTER it happened.
As I said, none of us know yet whether this is a mistake, which is possible, or a pattern of rage, or something in between. I'm not saying the man deserves jail, or deserves losing his reputation, all I'm saying is this one incident is over the top and if nothing else, was an extreme way of using corporal punishment. If that's all it is, he will learn to be better at being a disciplinarian and a parent. Let's hope that becomes the end result of the case here.
I also think it was over the top and say so many times after I saw the pics.
However, a switch hurts. And barring other evidence, this is not a felony, and should be handled through social services with direction from the court.
I know this kind of family, and I have zero doubt that he was mirroring what he’d learned from his own family about punishment.