Mother to surrender in videotaped beating of girl

Associated Press ^ | September 21, 2002 | Associated Press Staff

[MeekOneGOP]

Mother to surrender in videotaped beating of girl

09/21/2002

Associated Press

MISHAWAKA, Ind. - A woman seen on a department store security tape punching her 4-year-old daughter plans to surrender Saturday, her attorney said Friday night.

Police have been searching for Madelyne Gorman Toogood since Sept. 13, when a camera in a department store parking lot videotaped her punching and shaking her 4-year-old daughter.

The attorney, Stephen Rosen, said Ms. Toogood is on her way to Chicago and will surrender. She is charged with felony battery to a child.

Indiana police took the search nationwide Wednesday when they released the tape. "We want to get the girl the medical attention she needs," Police Chief Anthony A. Hazen said. "We want to get her to an emergency room and let them examine her."

Ms. Toogood is also wanted in Texas on at least two warrants. Fort Worth police said one warrant involves a shoplifting charge in March. Authorities in White Settlement, a Fort Worth suburb, issued an arrest warrant on an unspecified Class C misdemeanor.

Ms. Gorman's sister, 31-year-old Margaret Daley, who authorities say was present at the time of the incident, was arrested and charged with failure to report child abuse.

Police received more than 1,000 calls about the video, which was first aired Wednesday night.

Staff writer Laurie Fox contributed to this report.

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Online at: http://www.dallasnews.com/latestnews/stories/092102dnnatbeating.86c.html

[ItisaReligionofPeace]

Do you use the same compassion and logic when it comes to everyday common criminals? I mean, when you hear a 17 year old robbed a convenience store do you find the same empathy in your heart?

[MeekOneGOP]

Also, if this were a dog being beaten viciously in public, we would have an outpouring of money and loving homes for that dog....

I agree. And if that mother were a policeman and the 4 year old an adult citizen getting the same 'discipline', certain expressed opinions on this thread (not referring to yours) would be different too, I bet? It would still be wrong imho, but perspectives would be different from some of the folks on this thread.

So sorry for your personal experiences as a child......

[Irene Adler]

"Taking children away from their parents solves nothing."

Sometimes it keeps the children alive.

[homeschool mama]

**Sometimes it keeps the children alive**

So very true.

[agrace]

It's a private business using security cameras on private property. No different than if an average citizen hoisting a camcorder had taped it from their yard across the street.

[ItisaReligionofPeace]

Question: any ideas how many girls went through a lot worse spankings yesterday? Question 2: What do you propose? Surveillance cameras in every house where parents live with their kids? If you do not propose Q2, then this whole expression of outrage amounts to absolutely nothing.

Do you believe that we should go after Iraq? Or do you believe that since there are other contries with WMD, including the U.S., that we would be hypocrites to attack Iraq?

Other people's business? First of all, this was in a public place and secondly, I guess if parents want to burn their kids with cigarettes, that's their business?

[Irene Adler]

"Perhaps the bleeding-hearts out there should note that she is using the spanking method advocated by their #1 idol, O'Reilley of Fox. Mr. O'Reilley advocated spanking for as long as it is done with an open hand and not on bare skin."

I saw a closed fist used for the second round of blows. Also, way too many blows delivered, the last round after the child was deposited in her child seat in the car.

[Paul Atreides]

I also saw some movement in the car, on the part of the woman's sister. It looked as if she was restraining the little girl.

[socal_parrot]

This thread is starting to sound like the Monty Python sketch, "The Four Yorkshiremen"-

MP: You were lucky. We lived for three months in a brown paper bag in a septic tank. We used to have to get up at six o'clock in the morning, clean the bag, eat a crust of stale bread, go to work down mill for fourteen hours a day week in-week out. When we got home, our Dad would thrash us to sleep with his belt!

GC: Luxury. We used to have to get out of the lake at three o'clock in the morning, clean the lake, eat a handful of hot gravel, go to work at the mill every day for tuppence a month, come home, and Dad would beat us around the head and neck with a broken bottle, if we were LUCKY!

TJ: Well we had it tough. We used to have to get up out of the shoebox at twelve o'clock at night, and LICK the road clean with our tongues. We had half a handful of freezing cold gravel, worked twenty-four hours a day at the mill for fourpence every six years, and when we got home, our Dad would slice us in two with a bread knife.

EI: Right. I had to get up in the morning at ten o'clock at night, half an hour before I went to bed, (pause for laughter), drink a cup of sulphuric acid, work twenty-nine hours a day down mill, and pay mill owner for permission to come to work, and when we got home, our Dad and our mother would kill us, and dance about on our graves singing 'Hallelujah.'

[southern rock]

It's a private business using security cameras on private property.

And then running and showing their footage to the police.

[avenir]

Ask my children, any of them, about physical spankings and they will give you confused look. My wife and I have never resorted to spankings...They have turned out wonderfully well-adjusted, cheerful, obedient, and self-disciplined.

"Folly is bound up in the heart of a child, but the rod of discipline will drive it far from him"—Proverbs 22:15

Honestly, no spankings? No need? All well-adjusted? It's not that I hope you are deceiving yourself here, just that I suspect it on some level when anyone counters Biblical wisdom.

I am childless, but believe me I am an experienced observer (nieces, nephews, the general populace). What I've seen more than confirms the Biblical wisdom on the need to discipline children...with the rod. There are all kinds of ways, I know, but I just don't buy into "I spared the rod and God didn't know what he was talking about cause they all turned out just fine."

I hope it's true for you, but you'd be an exception.

[agrace]

My point is valid - these are not govt cameras taping citizens.

Are you saying that if you witnessed the incident, you would NOT report it to the police?

[avenir]

I, too, believe in the right to discipline a child, but within reason. That beating on the video was without reason.

About sums it up.

[ItisaReligionofPeace]

This woman clearly doesn't know how to treat a child, is like a kid herself but I reserve judgement on whether she is a monster.

Do you use the same compassion and empathy when judging other common criminals? I mean, a lot of criminals were brought up without dads. And a lot of criminals were abused when they were young. They obviously just didn't know right from wrong. (/sarcasm)

[ItisaReligionofPeace]

The story just seemed too local to be a national situation.

Luckily it isn't everyday that a mother (gypsy, shoplifter) is caught on tape beating her four year old.

[Cultural Jihad]

And then running and showing their footage to the police.

Maybe Kohls was under the impression that the police are responsible for maintaining the famed LP Shun List for trailer park residents to refer to.

[MeekOneGOP]

My wife and I have never resorted to spankings (beyond one or two quick open-handed swats on a well-diapered behind, and then no more than two or three times in the entire childhood of each of them) or physical beatings to discipline our kids. They have turned out wonderfully well-adjusted, cheerful, obedient, and self-disciplined.

It sounds to me like you were lucky to have such well behaved kids and were a good parent, too.....

[sam_paine]

That's right! If it helped to identify the man who abducted a woman/girl, with the intention of raping and slitting her throat, that would be horrible.

Yep, Paul, "if [YOURCAUSEHERE] saves just one child's life....wouldn't it be worthwhile?" Jeez.