Abusive grandma in the park

We took Christopher to the neighborhood park yesterday so he could ride his bike for awhile and we could also play trakball. This park is large and beautiful, well kept and popular with the community. It takes up about one city block, with ancient trees sprinkled around and in the middle of the park, with a huge children's play structure at one end.


It also has the police sub-station located about a half block in on one side of the park, very convenient for safety. Unfortunately, we had to call the police on a woman yesterday, as we witnessed her beating her 3-ish grandson and was unable to put him into her car. It's always a tough call to know when to cross the line and make a call to the police, but this woman made it easy.

I first noticed them when Christopher and I were playing ball in the park, and she and the kid were exiting the area. The kid was having a screaming temper tantrum, obviously unhappy with the Grandma's decision to make him leave with her. He was screaming at his top volume, pointing at the park, and trying to run back to play. She pulled and dragged him, tried to carry him to her SUV that was waiting on the side of the park. It happened to be about 2 car lengths in front of our van, where Mike was still sitting and talking to a friend on the phone. All this time, the kid continued to scream and cry. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary, except we felt sorry for the woman for the bratty kid.

Then, I heard Mike out of the van and yelling at the woman that if she hit the kid one more time he was going to hit her. To which she yelled at him where he could kiss her. You get the idea. She went on to tell him to quit watching her...all the while she was trying unsuccessfully to put this kid in his car seat and he was still screaming and crying at the top of his lungs, flailing about and kicking and hitting, making it harder for her. We figure she was about in her 60's and seemed to be in good shape, so she should have had no problem getting this child into his seat, even with the difficult situation, after a few minutes. However, 15 minutes later, and several neighbors now standing around observing, the situation continued to escalate.

Then we saw her hitting the boy's head on the top of the door frame over and over again, as she tried to put him in his seat. Probably not intentionally, but it didn't matter. After the first time, if that was accidental, there was no excuse for any repeated times. You can put your hand on top of his head to keep from having it make contact. If he didn't have a headache from all the screaming and previous hitting, he surely had one now! I'm sorry, kids have tantrums, they must be dealt with, but this was ridiculous. Because the kid didn't stop screaming from the first and second round of hitting, he obviously must be used to that kind of punishment and it didn't change his behavior.

It finally looked like she had gotten him into his seat, as she closed up the door and got into her seat. We pulled up beside her and I was going to tell her to take a chill pill before she hurt someone, and of course she ignored us.

We decided to call the police when we saw that the kid was NOT in his seat, and yet she was positioned in and ready to leave. Perhaps she was just trying to cool off, but she had already beaten him and yanked him around and was over the limit of being rational. If she wasn't feeling guilty, she could have done any number of other things to calm him down instead of continuing the violent approach.

We gave the police her vehicle tag number, description, and location yet when they arrived a couple of minutes later they drove on past us all. She took this opportunity to drive off with the kid not buckled in. When the police rounded the block again, we told them she drove off right in front of them, and they said they were looking in the park for a woman with a screaming kid, not in a car. Hmmm.....problem with dispatch translation? The calls are all recorded, so they could easily go back and see how the female dispatcher did not pass on the relevant info. Will they do this, and fix it so it doesn't happen again in another call?

The verdict: they will put this info on file, in case it comes up again. Because the woman drove off, there is nothing they can do? They have her tag number, they could have looked her up. Chances are, if she lived in the area, she'd be just a block or two away. They could knock on her door and warn her about the repercussions of child abuse and the effects of foster care, should the child be taken from her for abuse. Instead, they "put it on file", how convenient and lazy.

One can only hope that this ignorant woman, and the parents of her grandchild, will step up to the plate and become GOOD parents and caretakers. A child that is so out of control for such a long time obviously has issues, and probably issues that stem from his home environment or lack thereof, but is one that does NOT deserve to have his head repeatedly banged up against a car.