A corrections officer was arrested for first-degree child cruelty on Thanksgiving night in Evans for beating his 13-year-old stepson for playing on his tablet, authorities said.
Robert McCoy II kicked the young teen out of the house after dark and told him to keep walking and not return, according to a sheriff’s report.
The boy walked nearly three miles in bare feet and a T-shirt in 50-degree weather, hiding in some bushes outside a Circle K store until it got too cold. He then went inside the gas station, where a clerk gave him a jacket and called the sheriff’s office.
The boy said his stepfather caught him with his tablet and became enraged.
“He threw his cell phone at (the boy’s) face, hitting him in the mouth, and leaving a laceration on his upper lip,” a sheriff’s report says. “Robert then threw the tablet at his face, causing a large knot on his forehead. Robert then began punching him in random places on his body, and forcefully poking him in the face with his pointer finger while he was lying on his bed. Robert then told him to leave the house, start walking and not stop anywhere or come back to the house.”
The child’s mother was at Walmart at the time. The teen walked 2.9 miles in bare feet, wearing only a T-shirt and gym shorts from his house on Waltons Pass to the Circle K where he was found.
McCoy works for the Georgia Department of Corrections at the Augusta Transitional Center, the sheriff’s report says. Deputies say the suspect seemed “unconcerned” about the boy’s well-being and never expressed remorse after being told about the victim’s injuries, which included a busted lip and large knot on his forehead.
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