Facebook photos of a Texas father have gone viral, which has started a big online debate over what constitutes child abuse.
A woman saw a father dragging his daughter by the hair through a local Walmart and even after asking him to stop, he continued to do so.
The woman took pictures and posted them to Facebook where they quickly went viral.
The father had his young daughter’s hair wrapped around the handle of his grocery cart, shopping while dragging his daughter along by her hair.Burch told local news station WKYC that the girl was crying for her father to stop.
“Please stop! I promise I won’t do it again! Please stop!” Burch said the 5-year-old pleaded with her Father.
She asked the man to let his daughter go but the father told her to ‘mind her own business’ when she asked him to let his daughter go, to which she responded saying “Right now, this little girl is my business and you need to let her hair go now!”
“He told me, ‘I grew up just fine and do you see any of her hair missing?’” Burch wrote in her Facebook post.
Burch says that she flagged down a police officer who was in the store, who agreed the man acted inappropriately, but then had to wait for his Sergeant to arrive.
The Sergeant told Burch that nothing could be done because there were no visible bruises on the girl and she wasn’t missing any hair.
“He has the right to discipline his children,” Burch said the sergeant had told her.
“Now this baby had to go home with this monster thinking that nobody cared about her and it’s okay for this animal to pull her by the hair of her head,” Burch said on Facebook.
The Cleveland Police have been overwhelmed with comments about this since Burch posted her photos, and have assure the public that they are investigating.
“We are taking this pretty serious,” said Cleveland Police Chief Darrel Broussard. “Of course, that old saying, ‘if you see something, say something.’ In this case, I have to applaud those witnesses who attempted to intervene for the safety of the child.”
Burch just wants that little girl to know that someone did care enough to say something.
“I want her to know, it is not OK for anyone to grab you by the hair of your head, it is not OK for anyone to drag you by the hair on your head,” Burch said.
What would you do if you witnessed this?