hkw:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/8505376.stm
Sgt Joshua Tabor dunked the girl's head in a sink full of water for not
reciting the alphabet, police in the town of Yelm said.
The more you learn the sicker this story gets.
From the News Tribune:
Yelm police responded to a disturbance Sunday night after Tabor’s
girlfriend reported that Tabor, a Joint Base Lewis-McChord soldier,
“was irate, intoxicated and walking around the neighborhood with his
Kevlar helmet threatening to break windows.”
Tabor’s girlfriend told Yelm police that Tabor beats his 4-year-old
daughter and that the child’s back was covered in bruises. The
girlfriend reported that the 4-year-old had locked herself in a closet
because she was afraid of her father.
The girlfriend also
reported that when the child wets herself, Tabor “makes her sit in the
urine-soaked clothes” until he gives her permission to change.
The
girl spoke to a Yelm officer, and he observed that she “had severe
bruising on her entire back,” along with scratch marks and bruising on
her neck, throat, chin, arms, legs and buttocks.
She “was asked how she got the bruises and she replied ‘Daddy did it.’”
Asked how or why it happened, the child would not reply, then said, “I don’t know why he did it.”
Tabor
spoke to a Yelm police officer and said that he and his girlfriend had
“held her down on the counter and submerged her head into the water
three or four times until the water came around her forehead and
jawline.” He said that she was face-up when her head was in the water.
He added that they gave this punishment for the 4-year-old “refusing to
say her letters.”
Tabor told police that his daughter is afraid
of water “and was squirming around trying to get away from the water.
Joshua did not act as though he felt there was anything wrong with this
form of punishment.”
Yelm Police Sgt. Rob Carlson confirmed
Tuesday that the alleged abuse occurred because the child would not
recite her ABCs, according to police reports.
The police
investigation has revealed that Tabor has had “serious anger issues in
the past” and “has taken anger management classes.”
Tabor was
released Monday from the Thurston County Jail after posting $10,000
bail. He is restricted to base at Lewis-McChord as a condition of his
release.
He also cannot have contact with his girlfriend or children.
The child has been taken into custody by Child Protective Services, according to a police report.
Carlson
said the child’s biological mother lives in Kansas. Yelm police have
referred a potential criminal charge against Tabor’s girlfriend to the
Thurston County prosecuting attorney, but she was not arrested Sunday
night, Carlson said.
Now, why wasn't the girlfriend arrested too? And why haven't we heard about the biological mother? Why hasn't she rescued her daughter?
Total minor issue: Is anyone else annoyed by the inprecise use of language by the reporters to call this waterboarding? Yes it was torture to use the little girls fears against her but it's not waterboarding. It's some new form of nastiness. I know it's an insanely minor point compared to what the girl suffered but isn't accuracy in reporting important? Or am I letting my anger at the dad spill over onto the reporters?
"We thought we knew everything about everything, and it turned out that there were unknown unknowns." - Richard Fisher, NASA 2009