UPDATE: The East Baton Rouge District Attorney's Office announced Friday that they will not prosecute a mother charged with felony child cruelty after whipping her sons who allegedly committed a burglary.
District Attorney Hillar Moore told WBRZ that the decision to not prosecute was due to it being a one-time incident which did not cause "unjustifable pain."
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According to WBRZ, Schaquana Spears, 30, was arrested and charged Monday with two counts of felony child cruelty after deputies said she whipped her 10-, 12- and 13-year-old sons for allegedly breaking into a home. The 13-year-old, who had marks and cuts on his body, told deputies that she had hit him with an RCA cord.
"They're just being kids, being followers," Spears told WBRZ. "I thought I was showing them this is not what you do. You do not steal people's stuff, what they work hard for. I know how that feels; I've had my house broken into."
But Spears, who has since lost custody of the children, is getting support from the community and state officials after the incident made national headlines, The Associated Press reports.
"In biblical times, sparing the rod led to a spoiled child. In modern times, sparing the rod leads to an imprisoned child," Louisiana State Treasurer and U.S. Senate candidate John Kennedy, a Republican, wrote on Facebook. "If the state tries to keep or take these children away from their mother simply because she disciplined them for stealing, that would be a ludicrous step to take."
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Louisiana Attorney General Jeff Landry, who plans to review the case, agreed, writing, "To be a peaceful and moral society, it is imperative our children learn right from wrong. I am grateful for my loving mother who did not spare the rod to teach this valuable lesson."
But Louisiana Department of Children and Family Services Secretary Marketa Walters said this was "more than a mere 'spanking.'"
Discipline "crosses into abuse when it leaves a child cut, burned, bloody or bruised," she said.
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