Thanks to Facebook this father’s behaviour did not go unpunished

Erika Burch was shopping with her husband when she saw something in the distance that shocked her to her depths. While casually strolling down the aisles, a father had attached hisdaughter's hair to his shopping cart and was literally dragging her by her hair. The little girl, who couldn’t have been older than 7 or 8 years old, was crying and begging her father to stop, but to no avail.

The Burch couple therefore intervened and demanded that this abusive fatherlet go of the poor girl’s hair. ‘Mind your own business,’ he said. A noisy altercation then followed which attracted the attention of an off-duty police officer who was doing his shopping at the time.

This police officer called his chief for back-up, who to the great surprise of Erika Burch, said that he couldn’t do anything since he did not have the right to prevent this father from ‘disciplining’ his daughter, as long as there was no apparent injury to her body… Thus ignoring the psychological woundsthat would take even longer to heal.

Fortunately, Erika had already taken matters into her own hands. Before even approaching the father she had taken pictures of the scene and of the crying little girl and shared them on Facebook. Immediately, her photos went viral, reaching 50,000 shares in just a few hours, and 216,000 after just two days.

This sudden media coverage had the desired effect. Thanks to Erika and the many citizens who, following her photo testimony, contacted the police in Cleveland, Texas, the police found themselves obliged to launch an official investigation jointly with the child protection services of Cleveland, Texas.