A Florida mother hit her daughter with a hanger while on FaceTime with the girl’s father, displaying the violence on the screen, and even threatened to murder the kid, authorities in the Sunshine State claim.
Aaliyah Shantrelle Herring, 25, is charged with one crime of child abuse with no bodily injury and one case of child neglect with no substantial bodily damage, according to Miami-Dade County court records.
According to the Miami Gardens Police Department, the three-year-old’s father began utilizing his cellphone’s screen recording capability to chronicle the crimes as soon as the abuse began.
Police became aware of the terrifying occurrence earlier this month after the father shared the footage with authorities.
Herring was detained on Monday. During a subsequent interview with detectives, she reportedly acknowledged punishing her child for “throwing a remote at her,” according to an arrest record obtained by Miami ABC station WPLG.
Later, the defendant reportedly changed her story, telling investigators that the girl’s father generated the video using artificial intelligence — and insisted she was not the lady in the video.
“What you see on the video is a mother repeatedly beating a young child,” Miami Gardens Police Sgt. Emmanuel Jeanty told the TV station last week. “It was very, very hard for us to watch.”
The footage is unsettling. The youngster appears face down as if seeking safety in a piece of furniture. She lets out an audible cry.
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In the video, the mother is purportedly seen flogging the infant with what seems to be a hanger and making at least two remarks that strongly imply she may attempt to murder the young girl.
“Because you don’t want to handle your child,” a lady says at one point in the video. “Guess what? How about I eliminate her on my own?”
The indignant lady in the video then confronts the small girl and her father again, saying, “Do you still want to quiet up? That’s OK, y’all want to see me kill your kid?”
According to police, Herring was placed on a mental health hold before being arrested under Florida’s Baker Act.
The child’s father talked with Miami’s NBC station, WTVJ. He uploaded the tape he captured and reported the purported rationale Herring gave him for the abuse as it occurred.
“[She was] blowing up my phone and telling me to come pick up [the child],” he told the TV station. “Then she started sending me photographs on Messenger. Saying she’s had enough. Saying that I am making excuses. I am not picking up [the youngster]. I do not care about her. “I’m not—I’m not acting like the father that I was supposed to be.”
The couple is no longer together, and he previously had supervised contact with the daughter in a family law matter involving child custody.
That custody agreement is likely to be overturned today.
11th Circuit Court Judge Mindy Glazer granted Herring pretrial release on Tuesday, and he was freed on Wednesday. The defendant’s bail requires her to have no contact with her kid.
She pled not guilty at a first hearing this week. The defendant was also assigned as a public defender. She is next scheduled to appear in court for her arraignment on September 18.
The infant is now in stable health and is being cared for by Herring’s stepmother, according to officials.