Police Officers Jail Their Toddler for Potty Training Problems
People are demanding to know what exactly happened.
"Potty training is easy," said no parent ever. The process of getting a young child to pee and poop in a toilet instead of a diaper is notoriously difficult. Some parents are even willing to go to extreme means to expedite the process, hiring experts, bribing their children, and even, handcuffing them and putting them in a jail cell, according to a shocking new report. Two Florida cops are currently under investigation for using their police resources to discipline their 3-year-old for a potty training accident.
According to News-Journal, two Florida cops, Daytona Beach Shores police Lt. Michael Schoenbrod and Detective Sgt. Jessica Long, were in the process of potty training their 3-year-old when Schoenbrod put him under arrest.
In bodycam footage the little boy can be seen walking into headquarters and being placed behind bars by his father, not once but twice. The first time was on October 5 and the second, the following day.
"He was crying. I was getting the response I expected from him," Schoenbrod says to a caseworker in the footage. According to him, the tactic worked and his son promised never to do it again.
He also confessed to using the tactic nine years ago, disciplining his then-4-year-old for hitting a girl at preschool. "I took him to the jail and he sat there. And I watched him … and he was crying and everything, and to this day, if you mention, like, that incident, he's just like, 'I would never do that again.' It was effective," Schoenbrod told the caseworker. "So that's why I did it with this. He didn't hit anybody, but I figured the same thing, discipline. And he didn't want to go back, so …"
While it isn't clear whether the couple was disciplined, there are records from Public Safety Director Michael Fowler informing the couple about a probe. There is also a sealed court record from a March 24 case that lists Schoenbrod "et al." as plaintiffs and the State Attorney's Office "et al." as defendants.
"It's just disgusting that somebody would drag our family through the mud like this," Schoenbrod said in the video. Long could be heard in the background calling the investigation "insane," per News-Journal reported.
Now, multiple law enforcement officers and people linked to the judicial are speaking out against the sealed records, questioning the lack of transparency. "This whole matter just does not pass the basic smell test from a transparency and governmental openness perspective," Former city attorney Lonnie Groot wrote City Attorney Becky Vose, referring to it as an "alleged child abuse by an officer."
