A California parent was arrested after being captured on a cellphone video holding a girl from her daughter’s school and shouting at her daughter to hit the girl.
“Hit her. It’s after school. You can’t get in trouble,” Barbara Cypress, 40, is heard saying in the footage, which was captured by another student.
The assault happened at a bus stop in Turlock.
Cypress was arrested on March 13 at her home without incident.
She was booked at the Stanislaus County Jail on a felony charge of false imprisonment and two misdemeanors, Turlock Police Department Sgt. Russell Holeman told the Modesto Bee. She remained in jail Wednesday night on $20,000 bail.
Irina Lizarrage Acuna, the mother of the victim, Jacqueline Zavala, said that she blamed Cypress, not the woman’s daughter.
“It’s horrible for a parent to watch that. It’s awful. You feel really … I feel guilty, you know? I wish I would have been there to help her,” Acuna told Fox 40.
“In the video, you can see that the teenager doesn’t even want to hit my daughter. She’s being forced by her mom to hit her,” she said. “You know, I’m not even mad, I can’t be mad at the teenager. I’m mad at the mom. How could you force your daughter to hit someone else?”
She said she was going to sue Cypress, who is clearly shown on the footage holding Acuna’s daughter.
UPDATE: The Turlock Police Department reports Barbara Cypress, the woman seen restraining the teen in the video, was arrested at her home Tuesday night. She faces a felony false imprisonment charge and two misdemeanor charges of child abuse and contributing to the delinquency of a minor. IN CASE YOU MISSED IT: Turlock police are investigating an after-school fight that occurred last Friday between two girls at a school bus stop. Video of the fight appears to show an adult restraining one of the girls while encouraging another teen to hit her.
由 Kristi Gross 发布于 2019年3月12日周二
“Her mother came out of nowhere and was pressing her body against me telling her daughter to get me,” Acuna’s daughter, Jacqueline Zavala, told CBS.
The two girls both attend Turlock Junior High School. Zavala said that the fight happened on March 8 at a bus stop.
The Turlock Unified School District and Turlock Police Department confirmed investigations into what happened.
“Like most who have viewed this video, we were appalled by this attack. We have identified those shown in the video and have shared this information with the Turlock Police Department who are conducting an investigation,” the district said in a statement.
A Turlock mother is wanted for felony false imprisonment and misdemeanor child abuse and contributing to the delinquency of a minor for her part in helping her 12-year-old daughter hit another student. To read the full article please subscribe to https://t.co/dQA0SIH969 .#Tu… pic.twitter.com/fBALBw7jat
— Turlock Journal (@turlockjournal) March 13, 2019
Cypress’s daughter was arrested on March 12 and taken to juvenile hall, with possible punishment including in-school suspension or community service.
She is 12 years old and has not been identified by name publicly.
The police said that Acuna called them about the attack and more calls came in after Acuna posted the video on Facebook.
Child Abuse
An estimated 674,000 children were determined to be victims of maltreatment in 2017, according to the Department of Health & Human Services’ Administration for Children and Families. Of the victims, about 75 percent were neglected, 18 percent were physically abused, and 9 percent were sexually abused.
Nationwide, an estimated 1,720 children died from abuse and neglect, a decline from the 1,750 children who died from the same in the previous year.
Officials said there was an increase in the number of referrals to Child Protective Services for an investigation but that there was a decline in the number of maltreatment cases, a phenomenon they will be probing. Of the abused children, 25 percent were younger than 1 year old. Another 52 percent were between 1 year old and 5 years old.
The children who were killed by abuse or neglect were also overwhelmingly young, with about half of the fatalities being younger than 1 year old. Boys made up 58 percent of the deaths.
Perpetrators of abuse or neglect are most often in the 25 to 34 age range. More than four-fifths (83.4 percent) of the perpetrators were between 18 and 44 years old. Perpetrators were more likely to be female.
