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Subscribe to RSSPolice say a Minnesota mother and her husband shaved the head of her 12-year-old daughter, then forced the girl to run around in a diaper in public as punishment for a failing grade on her report card.
The child’s 38-year-old mother and the woman’s 34-year-old husband were charged on Wednesday with malicious punishment of a child, a gross misdemeanor, according to Lt. Mike Monsrud with the Fridley Police Department. The offense is punishable up to a year in jail and or a $3,000 fine.
"Parental discipline is one thing, but intentional humiliation of a child is abuse no matter what," Monsrud told msnbc.com.
Msnbc.com is not identifying the family.
Officers arrested the couple Monday evening after a neighbor called police, saying a crowd of about 50 people, mostly men and boys, had gathered outside to watch the child, clad in a diaper and a tank top, begging to be allowed inside the family’s townhouse in Fridley, just north of Minneapolis, Monsrud said.
"When the officer found her, she was crying and hysterical and inconsolable," Monsrud said. He said while officers were escorting the girl to the patrol car, a neighbor took a baby blanket from her own infant and wrapped it around the girl, whose hair clippings were still clinging to her neck, chest and tank top.
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According to a criminal complaint, the couple had warned the child repeatedly that she would be placed on “diaper duty” if she failed her classes.
"They told her if she didn't get good grades, they would shave her head and put her on 'diaper duty,' which I guess meant running up and down the street and cleaning up trash as a form of public humiliation,” Monsrud said.
A crowd started to gather shortly after the girl first emerged from her home after 7 p.m. Monday, Monsrud said. The girl was forced outside and told to repeatedly sprint back and forth, according to the criminal complaint.
"One of her classmates from school saw [the girl] and was calling her name while she was running but [the girl] told him to leave her alone," the complaint stated.
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The Police Department received two calls during the time the girl was outside, which lasted about 30 minutes, he said.
"What is perhaps the most disturbing is that all the way up to the jail, the couple was laughing and joking, not believing they were involved in anything inappropriate," Monsrud said. "They questioned police involvement. They believed it was their decision as parents to discipline the girl."
Monsrud said the girl and three other children in the family have been placed in foster care.
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Leave a Comment:
If you've ever been to Rural Minnesota you'd have a better understanding of the entire situation.
No matter where you live this was absolutely sick and wrong!!! There is no excuse that makes what these people did to their child okay!!!
These "Parents" should be made to run around in public with a Foot up their Azz....
Wow, and I thought I was strict. I made my daughter write 50'x, and write an apology letter to her teacher, for getting a "yellow" on her daily behavior chart. GEEESSHHHH!!
I agree with Toosano, however, I would like to see these so called parents in diapers with their heads shaved as well while their asses were being kicked up and down the street!!! I'd also be on the volunteer list!!!
How horrible for this young girl. Perhaps these alleged parents need some of their own medicine. Diaper duty for the parents. Perhaps then they might see the error of their way. Wondering if they would still be laughing?
Sorry man, but I can't stop thinking about being a 12-yr. old girl with a shaved head and imprisoned parents, living in a foster home and then going to school every day with either a cheesy wig or a shaved head.
How long for it to grow back? Maybe 3 more years?
I picture her EXTREMELY depressed, not answering questions in class, shutting down, not speaking or looking up at anyone and then hearing that ass in the back of the room screaming out, "Hey Baldy, can I use your head for bowling after school?"
I picture her close to tears, if not sobbing and then going back to some home, putting a belt over the closet pole and finishing what everyone has started. And I can't stop thinking about this.
I think this one will stick with me for quite a time. Yup.
Also find it funny that no one else noticed the irony of how often you hear of cops arresting, pepper-spraying, tasering and handcuffing students as young as 5, yet they're the ones calling the parents abusive.
As someone else said, "jus' sayin'".
I'd bet anything these so called parents are religious nuts. Some of them think their kids are property and CPS and the cops can't tell them how to treat them. Im grew up in a home like that- poor kid, hope she gets help.
The same bleeding-hearts crying out for what they call "injustice", and taking the time to write here without knowing all, or even most of, the facts of the case...are the same ones who are the first to write comments like, "Where the heck are the parents???", whenever there is an article or report about gangs of roving pre-teens causing trouble, mischief and mayhem.
Apparently, according to the police (not to mention the vast majority of the writers here)…the only “tools” of discipline parents have been left with today are begging, pleading and bribing.
Do you know what is even more “humiliating” than having your head shaved or wearing a diaper for 30 minutes???...
Not graduating middle or high school and living a life of dirt-poor poverty because your parents were so very afraid of going to jail for living up to their responsibilities of getting you ready for the big-bad-world outside…that they let you do whatever, whenever and however you liked.
Then the rest of us are left with a society gripped in such total anarchy that it bears little-to-no-resemblance to an actual “society” at all…but more akin to a free-for-all for those who think the world owes them something, or more precisely…everything.
Meanwhile…the rest of us, (from the creation of a socialist regime) toil from sun up to sun down so that we can earn the dubious privilege of supporting those that can’t be bothered.
Whoa…think I might have just figured out how we all got to where we are!?!?
It is a parents responsibility to insure THEIR child is learning appropriately, if they can't absorb it in school then the parents need to provide it. YOU HAVE SOLVED NOTHING but a delision in your own mind...
Oh, C'mon!! You've got it all figured out have you??? How about if parents showed their kids more love, affection and attention???? Apparently this is not her real father so how about if her mother were more concerned about her children's welfare and not about getting laid??? How about if she were to read to her children every night before bedtime and would take them to the park and the museum on the weekend (it's free) or the library or do science projects with them? I'll bet she never shows up for parent teacher conferences. I'll bet this little girl isn't in girl scouts or any school sports. Don't EVER defend humiliating a child to show them WHO IS BOSS. IT IS ABUSE and it will only escalate into physical abuse later on. You are a very ignorant person who is thinking only of the monetary side of this issue. Try thinking about the human side of the issue. Try making a difference in a child's life instead of whining about how it will effect your wallet. Whoa!!! Maybe I've just hit onto something!!!!!!
So, Laura... you don't think there was a better way? You think these parents are heroes? Did you also admire the two women who made that poor little girl run until she died for eating a candy bar a few months back? Sickening.
So...it would seem that the thought process here…is that a child who gets taken to museums or is read to at night, cannot choose to fail?
Or…is the logic supposed to be that a single-mother should stay single until the children are grown and gone and not be concerned about where her children will learn-by-example about relationships?
(BTW - Love how you blame a woman in a committed relationship, attempting to curtail her child's self-destructive behaviour...and never bother to ask where the "real dad" was! Maybe he's out of the picture because he is off being, "too concerned about getting laid"?!?! But I guess you're fine with that.)
No...the logic here must be that a child failing in school is proof that there is no love and attention at home, a home where there is neglect and/or abuse.
The problem with that particular logic...is that it would mean that a child passing all of their classes, cannot be either neglected or abused.
Except we all know that is not the case...don't we.
As I said at the beginning...there is clearly far more to this story than any of us can, or ever will, know.
However...the "let's throw more resources at it" mentality is exactly what I am talking about when I say we are raising generations of kids who think they are entitled.
The answer to a kid failing...(And let's face it...you have to either really want to fail, or not bother to show up...to fail middle school.) ...isn't more treats. Outings to parks, museums and libraries not to mention sports or scouts...are rewards to be earned. To be earned with good behaviour and with rule-following, neither of which seems to have happened in this case.
You people really think what this kid needs is more treats???
You people really think that "love" conquers all???
You think the rest of the world, (I.e., higher-education, employers, etc.) will look at her failures and say, "We won't 'embarrass' her by throwing her out or firing her...oh no...she just needs more love, attention and a field-trip…then all will be well."?!?!
What kind of Disney-version of reality do you think this is?!?!
And what...may I ask of the world-at-large...ever happened to "suck it up"?!?!?
Remember that?
The good-'ol-days...when a mistake was made, a price was paid, the lesson was learned, you sucked it up, and got back to business?!?!?
Also, to set the record straight…I never said the parents in this case were "heroes". What I was trying to say was that they, unlike others, were at least showing an interest, and attempting to do something about socially unacceptable behaviour.
Those of you who do not know what it is to feel as though you have tried everything else, and it's time to get creative…are either very limited in your parenting experiences, your life experiences…or both.
As for "learning disabilities"...I guess only time will tell.
It would seem to me, however, that if this incident was as traumatic as you all make it out to be...then surely she will never fail a class again...???
If she does...then I guess you will have been proven correct...and she is special-needs after all, and can start riding the short-bus to school and applying for all that tax-paid-government-assistance the rest of us fund.
Laura, do you think this will make the child more likely to graduate high school? Don't you think she would want to get away from a place where the kids will know about this and make fun of her!
These parents are worse than animals and this is not parenting....I would bet you they weren't involved in the school or helping her with her homework!
Absolutely disgusting! Please don't let these children go back to that house....... I would like to have 5 minutes alone with the mom please........ my husband would like 5 minutes with the dad.......
That is just wrong. Did the parents help the girl to try to improve her grades? Did they go over homework and asked if she needed help. Did they apply resources such as a computer library time. even good kids need help to achieve in school my Aunt always helped me with my homework. I home school my autistic son and his teacher gave him the following Questions she wanted answers to poetry imagry my son was reading:
What does the __— do that is "Human-Like".
1. The City
2. The Snow
3. The Stairs etc.
She had writting it just like that and my autistic son CAN NOT FILL in the blank answers he did not understand what she was asking him to do. He struggled with this for about 4 hours, but thank goodness I was there to say "honey you don't understand how to do this do you" He looked at me with those brown eyes and said no Mamma do you? I said she wants you to describe HOW the city is human like in the poem your reading (answer was the City Walked) see even the nicest teachers in the world have trouble instructing kids, but it's the parents job to be there to help when problems like this arise he knew the answer he just needed to be led in the right direction. They were awful to humiliate her like that, that is just wrong that only teaches her to do the same later in life. Hopefully they will have to prove to be better parents to get their children back and stop using gistopo tacks for punishment.
Morons, Freaks! Sick! Let me see........ No thats about it.........................
Makes m wonder if they know where the gene pool came from. Fell bad for the girl, for the parents sorry your just stupid.
Was anyone else creeped out by the fact that mostly men and boys were outside watching her running around in this diaper?
Perverts!
How about shave the hair off both parents an put them in a diaper and see how they like it. If the parents would spend time loving that girl and helping her with her homework maybe she would've had better grades. You can get more done with love that with hate.
The parents made a "stupid" threat so they MUST stand behind it??? HOW STUPID IS THAT STATEMENT?? What if they said that "next time, I will break your neck"? If the parents are not doing their job, how in the holy hell should they expect their children to be good at doing theirs?? I don't even think that you put ANY thought into what you say before you say it.
sorry, that comment was meant for JPRHEDD
This is one of the most disturbing stories I've ever heard. It's scary how twisted and cruel some people can be to other people and have no conscious about it. The child will be scared forever. It should be illegal for some folks to have children...it would be a big mistake if the child has to live with these two.
I would think judging from the intelligence of the parent the girl did not live in an enviroment conducive to learning! The poor kid!