BATON ROUGE (WGNO) – A Baton Rouge mother thought she was doing the right thing after catching her preteen sons burglarizing a home. But authorities thought differently.
30-year-old Schaquana Spears was booked on two counts of cruelty to juveniles Monday morning.
WBRZ reports that Spears admitted to detectives that she whipped her 10 and 12 year old boys with RCA cables multiple times as a punishment for breaking into a house.
The boy had cuts on both arms and marks across his body, according to investigators.
Spears said told reports outside the jail Tuesday that someone saw her story on the news and posted her bond.
East Baton Rouge District Attorney Hillar Moore released a statement about the incident:
“Parents have the right and obligation to discipline and teach their children. We often time see children who have no parental authority or discipline which eventually results in delinquency and criminal acts.
We need more parents who discipline their children. Surely you would expect a parent to discipline a child who is burglarizing other people’s homes as this could be a deadly encounter for the child.
The degree of physical discipline will be reviewed. The law does not allow excessive pain or cruelty but does allow physical parental discipline.
I only have the short synopsis which does indicate that the discipline resulted in marks on the child’s body and possibly an open wound.
I will review all of the reports; meet with the DCFS office and review any history of this mother and her children to get a better picture of the entire family dynamics before making a decision.
In the meantime, my office is working with the juvenile court to ensure the speedy release of the mother under conditions satisfactory to the court.”
