Arizona: Parents arrested after forcing son to walk outside on hot ground as punishment

[davidn3600]

On July 12, the high in Phoenix was 110 degrees, according to Weather Underground.

That’s not quite hot enough to effectively fry an egg on the street, according to The Washington Post, but it is hot enough to severely burn the bottom of someone’s feet.

Police said that’s exactly what happened when Mark Simmons decided to punish his 6-year-old son by “taking the boy outside and making him stand barefoot on the ground in the backyard as punishment,” according to court records cited by ABC affiliate KNXV-TV.

Simmons also allegedly told police that he used a belt to whip the child, leaving him with bruises.

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The child told police that his stepmother — identified as 30-year-old Sarah Simmons — was home at the time and aware of the brutal punishment, according to the Arizona Republic.

In court documents cited by the paper, Sarah Simmons is accused of cutting blistered flaps from the bottom of her stepson’s feet. The documents state that she told him that “if he didn’t stop crying, he would go back outside and burn worse,” KNXV-TV reported.

The Republic reported that in the court documents police also claim that Simmons told investigators that she didn’t initially seek medical treatment for the boy because she was “afraid the children in the house would be taken away.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2016/07/31/no-kid-deserves-that-police-say-barefoot-child-was-forced-outside-on-110-degree-day-as-punishment/

The police say the step-mother also has 30 prior reports of abuse filed against her to the Arizona Department of Child Safety.

Neighbors say the allegations did not come as a surprise.

[Egnever]

1. Neighbors say the allegations did not come as a surprise.

Lovely

[Arkansas Granny]

2. 30 prior reports and the children were still in the home?