Is it possible to have Men's professional sport be any scummier?

[riseball]

^As they should Riseball. It is awful what children and their parents thought was acceptable, then. It is not acceptable, nor should it be. If anyone, parent or not, took a switch to my kid or grandchild they would regret it the rest of their lives. Do I swat on the the bottom, sometimes? Yes. Do I strip the child and whip her with a tree branch? Absolutely not. I predict that AP will not play football on Sunday. If he does, he may find out just how people view him.

I hope that he gets 6 months in prison.

Unfortunately what is viewed as abuse now was acceptable parenting yesterday. You cannot apply the PC standards of today to actions 40-50 years ago. I take no issue with your actions as a grandparent but lets see how others may view it. What if someone called the Tucson PD and made the following statement:

She has admitted to have engaged in a pattern of willful physical violence toward her grandchildren. This was done with the sole intent of inducing physical and emotional pain and as such is child abuse and warrants prosecution.

Would you get prosecuted? Doubtful. But see how that works? The PC crowd can find abuse, racial inequality, and a host of injustices and transgressions in any given scenario. I do not know the whole story with this guy. If this was an isolated incident he will hopefully learn from it. If not, then let's see how the facts play out.

 

[Amy in AZ.]

As a certified teacher, I would have been required to report the marks that appear on this boy. Picking up something, to hit a child or adult, is abuse. And the excuse that "we always did it this way," will not stand up in court.

 

[riseball]

As a certified teacher, I would have been required to report the marks that appear on this boy. Picking up something, to hit a child or adult, is abuse. And the excuse that "we always did it this way," will not stand up in court.

I am afraid you are misinformed. In many states, 19 including your home State of Arizona this action is sanctioned both in the home and the school system.

 

[JJsqueeze]

What is up with all the PC comments? How does this even relate to political correctness? we are not talking about whether the term Oriental is offensive, this is a 4 year old that was whipped to the point of bleeding.

Let's not tie everything back to being PC please, I hate political correctness and take pride in being as un PC as they come. And I have had the type of person you are talking about give me parenting instruction once, actually called me abusive in the middle of a zoo because I was not hugging my crying daughter, but letting her cry something out (at 4 my daughter would punch you in the face if you tried to get near her when she was angry, she just needed 2 minutes to cry with no one around her and everything would be fine) so I get where you are coming from, but this is not that.

And as for the "pappy did it that way" argument, don't we want things to get better over time? Isn't our job as people to look at how things were done and improve them? So what may not have been abuse 40 years ago very well may be abuse today, just as working conditions 40 years ago are probably not as safe as they are today. Progress is a good thing.

 

[Softball scholar]

I haven't read this entire thread but to those that are AD apologists, you're idiots!!! What he did is child abuse! Now do I believe he did it with the intentions of abuse, I don't think so and at very least hope not. Are there many of us that were whipped like this when we were young? Yep. Are there some of us that whipped our kids like this? Yep. I look back and see all the mistakes I have made raising my kids and wish I had a redo. That is why I am more pissed at the people that are defending him than AD himself! Parents are gonna make mistakes and hopefully learn from them but to keep defending these actions is why people still think it is OK. And in no way am I defending AD. For God's sake he lost a son to abuse last year. You would think he would be making better decisions. And for those that are saying "he is a loving father just disciplining his kids", F off! He is a part time father at best. And a product of his own upraising and just doesn't know any better at very least. And the "my pappy whooped me like that so I'm gonna whoop my kids like that" crap doesn't fly either. Slavery was once accepted and at that time the attitude was "why I don't see a problem with slavery, my pappy owned slaves". Yeah not a problem for anyone, unless you were a slave.

Little confused. But I think the poster means "AP" for Adrian Peterson instead of AD.

 

[Softball scholar]

In response to the original post. I think its fair to say that there are scummy guys in professional sports and especially the NFL, but most of the guys in the NFL are not like this. Theres always bad apples. And domestic violence has always occurred in the NFL just like any other business or industry and probably at a similar rate. In past examples, I bet occurences have been swept under the rug or never recieved any media scrutiny. Im amazed at the magnifying glass all these incidents are being put under. The power of pictures is the anatagonist in this case, and no one has visually watched a player assault a woman. I think the Ray Rice has introduced a new paradigm. Maybe the good thing is there is a focus on domestic violence and will curb it.

I hear people say these guys should never play again, but is that the real world. I dont have data, but I would expect that most domestic violent offenders dont lose their jobs.

 

[BobInMadison]

Any sort of power can be used or abused.

I grew up in a time and place where corporal punishment was permitted in the schools. I must say, in every case where I was at the receiving end of a paddling, it was deserved. Only happened at most twice. I have seen NON-physical punishments abused. I spent a year in a school in NJ while my father was on a sabbatical where I thought the principal abused his power to hand out detentions. While I respected the few educators in Arkansas who swatted me, I grew to hate and despise that particular principal in New Jersey.

OTOH, decades ago I was involved with a young woman whose mother clearly abused her. It wasn't that she was just getting beatings for bad stuff she did, but she would get a beating if her mother happened to be frustrated. For example, once, as a small girl, her mother was cooking dinner and dropped something on the floor, making a mess. Young girl walks in, and the mother yells why are you standing there and not helping me. Gets out the stick and wallops the girl.

By the time I knew her, as an adult, she still had scar tissue on her butt and upper legs. The emotional scars were far worse, and may explain why she was never able to form a permanent relationship as an adult.

When I see pictures of a 4-year-old boy with horrible cuts and bruises, days after the fact, on his buttocks, legs and penis, and it turns out it was a beating for horseplay, there is only one possibility: Abuse. This was not the loving discipline of a kind but firm father. This was a 4-year-old who received a nasty, potentially maiming, beating from a professional athlete who may or may not have been using steroids.

I agree that the government gets involved in parenting too readily. Like the women in Florida who were arrested for sending their kids to the park. I've seen even crazier things in Madison.

In some cases, the government HAS to get involved. In this case, the ONLY protection the child, and his mother, have from this monster lies in the long arm of the law. It may be hard to get a conviction for a switch beating in Texas, but the mother has to do what she can to protect her kid.

I am truly worried that, at some point, another one of AP's kids will be disciplined to death. This time by AP.

 

[sluggers]

So, 25 years ago, I was making decision about whether to file charges for child abuse. I have reviewed many, many allegations of child abuse. I've looked at more pictures of beaten and abused children than you guys can imagine.

To decide whether to file charges, I considered (1) the extent of the injuries, (2) the location of the injuries, (3) the age of the child, and (4) the circumstances.

Here are relevant facts:

1) The child was 4YOA. This is a young child. Disciplining a child at that age only takes a whack across the bottom.
2) The parent used a switch rather than a hand. I understand that people have been punished with switches, belts and hair brushes. It is a factor to consider because it is easier to seriously hurt a child with a switch or belt. So, a man generally does not use a switch or belt. If he does, they are generally careful where they hit the child. No one ever hits a child "above the waist" with a belt or switch. It just isn't done.
3) The child was hit on the face. There are pictures of the child's face, but they haven't been released. Hitting a child in the face with anything other than an open hand is a big deal.
4) The child had defensive wounds on the arms and hands. Defensive wounds show that several blows were toward the face of the child. So, the defensive wounds show (1) a risk of serious injury to the child and (2) the beating was a series of blows directed to the face and head.
5) The blows were enough to cause bleeding. There are cuts and lacerations on the 4YOA child's body. This potential could cause scarring of the child's body.
6) Hitting the child's penis is "weird", to say the least. Either (1) the father was so angry he didn't know where he was hitting the child, meaning that the father was in a blind rage or (2) the father knew exactly where he was hitting the child, making this sex abuse.
7) The father appears to believe that he can do anything to the child he wants. This indicates that the father thinks of the child as something he "owns" rather than as a human being.

You haven't seen as many pictures of abused children as I have, so you'll have to take my word on this: These are pretty serious injuries. If you want to get real specific, these injuries appear to be worse than cigarette burns. (Cigarette burns are the "gold" standard for child abuse.)

For the first offense, the goal of most prosecutors is not to put the father in jail. People discipline their children the way they were disciplined. Usually, the father just needs to be educated in how to discipline a child and get some anger management training.

If the father admits he was wrong and consents to counseling, then I probably wouldn't file charges. I would threaten the father, but if he consents and goes along with counseling, then I wouldn't file the charges. He and the family would go to counseling and he would learn better parenting skills.

It may sound like mumbo jumbo to some of you, but it isn't. Social workers and psychologists can be very helpful. Some people have emotional problems and have no idea how to discipline a child.

But, if the father does what AP did here, which is basically say, "I can beat the child any time and any way I want," then I would file charges.

 

[BobInMadison]

Sluggers,

Thank you for a very clear explanation of the difference between discipline and abuse. I was not aware of the facial injuries on THIS child, but I was aware of the facial and head injuries on the OTHER young child.

I agree with your assessment, that this is abuse worthy of criminal prosecution.

And, as a Packers fan, the response from the Vikings gives me one more reason to be glad I'm not a Vikings fan.

 

[GunnerShotgun]

The bottom line is I don't need the NFL to tell me how to raise my children.

Leave law and order to the police, lawmakers, and judges. The NFL should focus on football and less on being the morality police.