A Florida mother was arrested for allegedly ordering her children to attack a 10-year-old child while she restrained him after the victim called her a “fat ass.
According to a release from the Osceola County Sheriff’s Office, a group of children were playing at the park inside the Heritage Park Apartment Complex when a physical altercation broke out, prompting a group of the kids to fetch their mothers.
One of the mothers who responded to the situation was reportedly identified by authorities as 41-year-old Ketsy Ann Rivera.
Witnesses and the victim said that a verbal argument began when the mothers arrived.
According to court documents obtained by local outlet WFTV, Rivera called the 10-year-old victim a derogatory term, and in response the child called her and the other responding mother “fat a–es.”
Rivera allegedly told her children, ages 8 and 9, to attack the 10-year-old boy.
The two children reportedly obliged and began punching the victim, at which point Rivera grabbed him by the shirt so that he could not move.
“She was actually holding him back where he could not even defend himself from the other two boys coming at him or get away from the situation,” Captain Kim Montes of the Osceola County Sheriff’s Office told the outlet. “It was three against one.”
“The child was left with “significant swelling of his left eye,” authorities said.
Rivera immediately denied hitting the child when police arrived, but reportedly confessed to telling her children to attack him.
“It’s her job as a mom to come in and try and deescalate this, not ramp it up, and that’s exactly what she did here,” Montes said. “She took it to the next level.”
The victim was expected to recover but was “traumatized” by the encounter, the sheriff’s office said
Rivera was arrested and charged with contributing to the delinquency of a minor, child abuse without great bodily harm, and false imprisonment, authorities said.
