Stranger accused of slapping crying child at store

You have got to be kidding me....attacking a 2 year old is less than a felony? I am hoping you are not serious, wayne.

Wayne, a few days ago, you were arguing that escorting someone out of a building was assault and battery (a felony).

There's an entire novel devoted to this issue.



I don't think it's defensible in this case because the child was not causing any potential harm, just annoying Stone. Being annoyed is not sufficient provocation to hit someone.

That said, reading the book above might make you think twice about the "it's automatically a crime" response.

Well that's one opinion. Like I said, it's not so simple.

For example (to lift the novel's situation) what if the two year old was about to hurt your own kid? Would your maternal instinct be to protect your child or the stranger's?

Furthermore, to say that the starting point is that Stone should be assumed to have committed a felony assault "until proven otherwise" turns your entire legal system on its head. I am afraid you are not thinking very clearly on this.

I am not saying he is in the right (I think his actions in this case warrant a charge) but I do disagree with the notion that this is always the case and everybody who slaps a child must be charged with assault. We really don't want to go there.

Beth, throughout this thread you have been taking an unqualified stance that hitting a child is a felony. No exceptions.

What-ifs have plenty to do with challenging that stance, but it appears that you are not prepared to entertain any challenge to it, even though it is fundamentally wrong at law.

Pax, assault is not a felony. Aggravated assault is a felony.

I never said this man's actions should be legal. I just don't think it warrants a year in prison, let alone the 5 to 20 years in prison he's been charged with.

If I had been the mother, that man would be picking his butt off the floor in pieces. You don't slap children period and you sure don't put your hands on someone else's child. Gerrrrrr!!!!!

This is emotional stuff and you want to be wary of the precedent you're demanding be set.

If we say slapping a two year old is automatically a felony (as has been asserted above), then that has to include the parents. Are you prepared to say that every mother who slaps her screaming toddler should have to face jail?

As Wayne intimated, not everybody shares our views on corporal punishment for children. Like Wayne, my dad handed it out. I probably got slapped, strapped and kicked on a regular basis up to my mid-teens. I survived. Under the regime proposed by people here, my dad should have gone to jail. At the very least he would have lost his job due to a felony conviction. What do you think is more in the child's interest: to have to cop the occasional physical discipline, or to have the sole breadwinner for a family of nine out of work or in prison?

I didn't treat my kids that way but, like it or not, there are plenty of people who still feel that slapping a kid is warranted at times. It's a personal decision about parenting style, and I think it's extremely dangerous for the state to intervene in that to the point of making it a felony. It would be the very definition of a "nanny state".

Now belting someone else's kid is a whole other matter, but I really don't see how you can frame a law making that a felony, while leaving the road clear for parents to discipline their own kids. One in, all in, when it comes to the application of criminal law.

As Wayne said, hitting someone four times with little provocation is an assault. The age of the victim doesn't matter in that light, and the case can just be treated as an assault. We should not let emotional responses around the age of the victim cloud our judgment to the point where we demand an awkward and inherently flawed legal resolution.

Then you are obviously OK with jailing mothers who lose it with their screaming toddlers and slap them in public. You might not like it, but it does happen every single day. Do you really believe that's in the long-term interests of the child? (Personally, I think that's unbelievable bullsh*t, from my own experience. Being slapped by mum or dad is simply not that traumatic.)

Blech.

You're lumping any parent who believes in corporal punishment in with this guy

Wheelspinner is talking about parents who lose their cool and slap or spank a child. I don't think that ever happened in our household, when I was a kid. What you call violence, my parents called correction. When my mother slapped me, or my father spanked me, it was never in a rage. It was simply one more tool in a list of things that they used to promote discipline. Nothing more, nothing less.

It's obvious to me, Beth, that you never had to use corporal punishment with your children. You think if it as "violence" and maybe you didn't need it. Every child and every parent is different.

TO me there is a difference between violence that is justified and violence that is not. A mugging for example is not justified. Resisting a mugger would be justified. Spanking as a form of correction would be justified. Personally, I would not even call that "violence", but I suppose that technically it meets the definition.

That's precisely what I'm thinking. Why would anyone even consider condoning slapping a toddler who is crying as a solution to the crying?! Yes, toddlers cry, they even through temper tantrums. Hitting or slapping doesn't solve it, it just escalates it. The best thing anyone can do when they are having a complete melt down is to just ignore their tantrum until they calm themselves down (you don't want to reinforce the behavior by giving them attention either). Geez, slapping them is just going to make them scream louder!

And, to slap someone else's child, I absolutely think this warrants tossing him in prison for several years. Someone like that should not be out in society. If a parent slaps their own child as a way of stopping them from crying, then yes, I think that parent belongs in prison too.

There are some rare circumstances when I do think it's okay to slap a child, or spank them, but that's generally when they are doing something that would pose a risk of immediate harm if they were not quickly stopped. For example, when reaching for a hot stove, or trying to stick fingers into some moving display, or about to topple an entire display onto themselves by grabbing for items in it...quickly slapping their hand out of the way, or pulling them away with a swat to the bottom would be okay, with an explanation later of why that was necessary, "You were about to get yourself hurt very badly." But, it's definitely not okay if the child is just crying, either because something is hurting or wrong or just because they are seeking attention or overly tired.

Calluna, it's my experience that a pat on the bottom works as an attention getter. No, it won't in itself stop a kid from crying, but it will get his attention so that you can talk him down.


It sure worked on me. I learned not to say disrespectful things to my mother.

As for the death penalty, I don't see that as a deterrent. However, this practice does promote low recidivism rates.

And you protect children first, and get the rest sorted out after the fact.

The idea that information campaigns alone will stop the routine slapping about of children in some families is simply unrealistic.

No, I am not. Violent reactions must not be part of our lives - at any level. And if we can control those before they become life threatening, we have turned a corner as a species.