Welcome to Arrest Stories. A forty-four-year-old Alabama second grade teacher was arrested after a viral video allegedly showed her beating her twelve-year-old son with a belt twenty-two times in fourteen seconds. Here's what may have happened.
On November sixteenth in Mobile, Alabama, Randi Nicole Jackson Staples was arrested and charged with willful child abuse after disturbing footage surfaced online. The video, filmed inside a home, allegedly shows Staples striking her son with what appears to be a belt or strap while yelling profanity at the crying child.
According to police reports, the beating occurred in the living room after an incident involving kitchen cleaning duties. The child had allegedly left to go to a neighbor's house before returning home, which led to the confrontation. Mobile County Sheriff Paul Burch described what the video showed, saying "People are entitled to discipline their children how they choose, but that went well beyond discipline. It was abuse. And it was sickening to see somebody repeatedly strike their child, then grab them by the hair and yell and curse at them."
The footage shows the woman throwing the boy to the ground by his hair while berating him. Two other children were reportedly in the house during the incident, with another sibling recording the video. Jackson Staples, the woman's adult son, received the video from one of his siblings on Tuesday and posted it online, where it quickly went viral.
Jackson Staples, now twenty-four, explained his decision to share the footage, stating "I didn't feel like, you know, she should be working at the school or even doing that to my little brothers. You know, she done it to me my whole life."
Sheriff Burch noted the contrast between Staples' professional and personal behavior, saying "It's almost like a dual personality. Because by all accounts, I'm told she is a good teacher and well respected. And yet what happens in the home is clearly opposite of that."
Staples was arrested Wednesday afternoon and released from Metro Jail Wednesday evening after posting seventy-five hundred dollars bond. Cottage Hill Christian Academy terminated her employment following the arrest.
All suspects presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. Do not take this report as factual, always verify facts. Thanks for watching Arrest Stories.