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A 5-year-old Arizona boy was bound at his hands and feet with duct tape by his father, as reported in today’s AZFamily.com. Jasper Smalley has been diagnosed with “Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, Bi-polar Disorder and Asperger’s Syndrome.” Here’s what allegedly occurred:
[Jasper's mother, April Smalley] says one day her ex-husband found out Jasper was caught hitting other children at daycare. “He called me after he had taped him up and told me he had duct-taped our son. I asked him to remove the tape immediately, and he said he wouldn’t. He said he was being punished.”
It was a punishment that made its mark in Jasper who was bound at his wrists and ankles.
April explains, “There were red abrasions on his wrists. It looked almost like where the tape had cut into his arm.”
April called Tempe Police. The police report says Philip Smalley admitted to taping his son three times. It reads, “Philip then took more tape and taped Jasper’s feet back together and taped his hands back together and taping up to the shirt sleeve of Jasper to prevent him from wiggling out from the tape again.”
The report goes on to say, “Jasper was crying and crawled on the ground to his bedroom with his hands and feet taped together where he sat and cried.”
The next day a judge granted April an order of protection against Philip. Police investigators called the case “felony child abuse” and sent it to the county attorney’s office but prosecutors never accepted charges.
Prosecutors have told April Smalley that they would “never get a guilty verdict.”
But duct tape?
I have to agree with Another Voice. I mean, so what if they won’t get a guilty verdict. Doesn’t the state have a responsibility to the minor hcild to protect his rights? Doesn’t the mother & son have a right to press charges and prosecute? This is totally messed up!
The decision by county prosecutors to not file charges clearly delineates how separate our court system is from the concept of justice. There is right and wrong on one hand and clearly winning on the other hand. It would appear that clearly winning and keeping the conviction stats high are first on their agenda.
It makes me wonder exactly what you have to do to a kid in AZ to be charged with abuse. Hopefully they’ll at least enforce the protection order.
Sounds to me like Az is a fucked up place: they’ll prosecute an 8yo for murder but let go a guy who abused his own kid in a barbaric manner?
Who appoints these idiot prosecutors to their posts?
And this is the state that is prosecuting a 8 year old child for murder?
Horrible. Just horrible.
That is horrible and it is abuse.