Dad drags daughter by her hair in Walmart as she pleads with him to stop
It was just another day doing some grocery shopping at Walmart for Erika Burch, until she saw a scene that enraged her, and apparently has enraged thousands of others across the country.
As Burch picked out Lunchables for her children in Cleveland, Texas, she saw a man pulling his 5-year-old daughter along, his hand grasping her hair and wrapping it around the handle of the shopping cart as she pleaded with him to stop.
“She was saying ‘please stop, I promise I won't do it again please stop!’” Burch said in a Facebook post. “I took my phone out snapped pictures and then told him to let the little girl’s hair go! He told me to mind my own business!”
Burch did not heed his advice and kept telling him to let the girl go, eventually calling the police.
One officer allegedly told Burch he wanted to see the man go to jail, but when a sergeant showed up he said, “they couldn’t take him to jail because there were no visible bruises nor was her hair missing,” and that the man “has the right to discipline his children,” according to Burch’s Facebook post.
“Now this baby had to go home with this monster thinking that nobody cared about her and it’s OK for this animal to pull her by the hair of her head,” Burch said.
Burch’s post has been shared more than 120,000 times, and has apparently prompted multiple calls to the Cleveland Police Department, who posted on Facebook that they are investigating the case and it has also been referred to Child Protective Services.
Cleveland Police Chief Darrel Broussard told the San Antonio Express-News that the man said his three children, including the 5-year-old girl, had been disruptive in the store. Holding her by the hair was his method of disciplining her.
CPS spokeswoman Tejal Patel told the Express-News that the investigation is in the early stages. She said in cases like this, investigators will check if there is a pattern of inappropriate discipline and determine whether the agency can provide services to help the family.
This story was originally published September 21, 2016 at 8:49 AM with the headline "Dad drags daughter by her hair in Walmart as she pleads with him to stop."