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

[FITZ]

I had a friend who used to reason with his children even when they were very small. It seemed to work but it required a lot of patience.

[dighton]

Loser. Liar too.

IMO, TigersEye, you're over the line. Please calm down.

[MeekOneGOP]

Funny how they don't view owning a gun, and using it on a perp, as infringing on the rights of some criminal. I guess we need to abolish the military, because it infringes on the rights of some hostile force to invade us.

LOL! Amen !

[MeekOneGOP]

....and it all began here.

[GB]

I absolutely agree with you. As a parent who on more than one occasion has swatted my kids' behinds when they've deserved it, I can tell you that what I saw on that video was absolutely reprehensible and the woman should be placed under the jail, for a long time. There's a difference between disciplinary spanking and abuse. And the fact that people are actually downloading this video and trying to analyze it frame by frame to prove that this is some eeeevilll liberal government plot to take someone's kid away is one example of why we conservatives are looked upon the way we are in some quarters. And it shows the disconnect between the libertarian and conservative wings on the right that IMHO is always going to threaten us ever being able to do anything to change this country from the right. Flame me as a liberal sheeple if you want to, but I never have and never will support the notion that government has no role to play in any of our lives, including the protection of children in instances like this. What I believe is that government should not try to ensure equality of outcomes or fairness (because it usually turns out to be arbitrarily unfair) or try to be the primary entity for meeting its citizens' basic everyday needs 365/24/7 cradle to grave. And I never have and never will support the concepts of libertarianism, because I believe that society, government, whatever does have the right to place limits on personal behavior. The extent of those limits is certainly open to debate but the right to place the limits at all IMHO is not. And I certainly think the government has the right to keep this piece of flotsam and jetsam from mugging a four-year-old.

[Paul Atreides]

If there is anything that non-liberals are criticized for, it is that we see things in black and white. If there was ever a black and white issue, this is it. I don't care what political persuasion, religion, race, whatever the woman is, the abuse of a child is reprehensible. This is no rebellious teen attacking her mother. This is a woman, who tried to pull some sort of scam on the store, was furious on the way to the vehicle, and lit in on the poor child, AFTER looking around to make sure that no one was watching. I was spanked as a child, when I deserved it. I believe in spanking as a form of discipline. But, I was never abused. And, I know abuse when I see it. This was abuse.

[TigersEye]

Boy was I right. It might bother you to know that I'm as calm as ice. Everyone here is expressing an opinion. So am I. Irene and Kevin posted to me. If they have a problem with me they can voice it...to me. Or they can push the abuse button on me. Where do you get off inserting yourself in it? Kevin likes arguing with me. I like arguing with him. He's never hit the abuse button on me (in fact this is the first time anyone has) and I've never hit it on anyone else. Try using using a little rationality with me. I respond to it. My past posting will confirm that. Insult me and I'll insult back. Use straw men or BS and I'll call you on it.

Not one person has responded to the substance of my original post. Kevin thinks he did. He didn't. As in the past he tried to bait me and I bit him. He knows the routine. Talk sense and don't try twisting my words or I'll have your lunch.

Now if there's no hard feelings and you haven't gotten me banned or something how 'bout getting back to the subject?

[A Vast RightWing Conspirator]

Interestingly, I counted the phrase 'white trash' 22 times on on this thread. This tells us something about the quality of the argument made here in favor of 'the viewers' deciding the fate of some random girl who got spanked one day in America. Are they self-hating whites or racists of other ethnicities? Inquiring minds would certainly like to know. Clearly, they are not very clever given that they fail to support their view, whatever that may be, in any way other than calling the woman shown on the tape 'white trash', 'whore' or 'gypsy' or claiming that she was a shop-lifter. Okay, enough about 'white trash' or the mental capabilities of those making such 'arguments'.

I do not know whether spankings such as that shown on TV occur by the millions every day or by the hundreds of thousands but I would assume that it's lots of them in a country such as ours where statistics show dozens of murders being committed each days, not to mention rapes, assaults and other violent crimes. Of course, for those who call a woman they know very little about 'white trash' and 'whore', reality is only what the tube shows them that night and the important events of the day are those that their favorite talking (sometimes as empty as theirs) heads say they are. So... yes, they just can't pass the opportunity of believing that they are part of something bigger than they (very easy, just about anything is bigger than them, including my dog) and nurturing that fantasy to until it turns into obsession. It's something that has been noticed before in cases such as Elian's or Shandra's, to mention only 2 of many. In the case of Shandra it took 3,000 dead people and a number of large buildings collapsing to get them off this media-induced hysteria.

Of course, they don't realize that it's not like the evil totalitarian state taking over their lives, it's them demanding a totalitarian super-structure to regulate their empty lives and give them some anchor into the world beyond their beloved television set. I saw over 200 contributions to this thread and not only one made reference to the following sentence in the article at the top of this thread:

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.

Is anyone concerned that someone was charged with... WHAT? Were any facts established? Who decided that what was on that tape showed 'child abuse'? Of course, many on this thread already know it was. They already know the woman was 'a whore' and, of course, 'white trash'. Is anyone disturbed at all? I was discussing this with my wife this morning. It was light conversation but the general idea was - if you ever want to see me in jail all you need to do is spank the kids a little and then I'll be taken away for failure to report your crime to the authorities.

I am going to stop here, it's barbecue time but, I'm sure, there are many other sad aspects that could be discussed in relation to this thread.

[dighton]

Insult me and I'll insult back.

I don't see where Irene Adler insulted you. You called HER a loser and liar.

Whoever hit "abuse" on you, it wasn't me.

[A Vast RightWing Conspirator]

Yes, I know...

[MeekOneGOP]

.....After 40 years, we finally became father and son.

Pardon me for butting in, but I just happened to be passing by. Thanks for sharing that story....

[GB]

If you want to discuss whether "failure to report child abuse" should be a crime, then philosophically I might be in tune with you because that's a slippery slope. But to call this a simple spanking is ludicrous. You can break the tape down with a microscope to try to prove otherwise if you want, I saw punching, shaking and hair pulling. That is not acceptable discipline for a child. Period. If you got worse when you were a child, that's your misfortune. And as far as whether anything has been proven or not ... is every fact in a case usually established at the time of an arrest? Under your scenario, no one should ever be arrested for anything. And as far as regulating our lives ... again, libertarianism is a silly concept that can not work in the real world. I'll stake my conservative credentials against anyone's, and if you want to read me out of the movement go ahead, and I've heard all the horror stories about foster care and social services, etc. ... but if it takes government regulation to prevent kids from being abused, then by God let's have, within limits and with oversight to make sure it works, government regulation!

[Paul Atreides]

So, in addition to security cameras, do you want to abolish camcorders (someone might be taping little Susie on the swingset and accidentally catch a purse-snatcher, on tape); cameras (same thing); binoculars (some busy-body might see something in someone's backyard); telescopes (same as binoculars); tape recorders (someone might tape someone else's conversation)? The list can go on and on and on. Practically anything can be abused. Why, there are even people out there trying to claim that owning your own gun is awful, because you might abuse that privilege.

[spunkets]

"it shows the disconnect between the libertarian and conservative wings"

There is no difference on how libertarians and social conservatives view this crime. The primary justification for government to exist at all is to protect rights and punish rights violations. This kids rights were violated in a heinous way. There is nothing a 4 year old can do that justifies a beating, or even a single strike for punative cause. None! No libertarian and no conservative will say otherwise. The proper label for someone that would is more akin to jackass, or some other meaningless intensive.

The video clearly shows the 4 y/o girl was punched 9 times with a closed fist in the side of the head, with all the force the mother could muster. That section of video was clear to me. I think the kid was at risk of having her neck broken from those blows. If I was taken to betting, I'd put my money on the child being dead from a broken neck. No news stories have popped up announcing the kid's OK, so I still think the kids dead. The blows were that severe and the girl was too small to take those hits w/o risk of death.

Someone made the comment above that the woman should be under the jail. I agree. The woman should be under the jail, not in it as the poster probably intended to mean.

[southern rock]

I'm gllad I don't live in your fantasy world, but rather in this one in which the children of abusive parents can be rescued.

Removing a child from his/her parent's sure sounds like punishment to me. How to you justify punishment without a conviction for a crime?

[TigersEye]

Then I owe you an apology. I am sorry for accusing you of hitting the abuse button on me. It's certainly not a crime to do so but I would hope for a little warning that I've pushed someone else's buttons that much before they did.

Irene, without making the mistake of falsely accusing you of hitting the abuse button, I apologize for insulting you. It should have been good enough to say, I suppose, that I don't believe the video conclusively shows her hitting her child. It is not proof. It is highly incriminating, but not proof. I'm sorry if your feelings were hurt.

[dighton]

Apology accepted. Thank you.

[Cultural Jihad]

Proof is determined in a court of law alone. The fact that there is an appearance or allegation of abuse is enough to justify intervention and investigation.