Images of a man dragging a young girl around by her hair has sparked anger on the Internet as well as revived the debate on the appropriate discipline of children after they were posted to Facebook by Texas woman Erika Burch.

The posting on Facebook has been shared well over 153,000 times and garnered over 8,000 comments since it was posted on Monday.

According to the Facebook posting, Erika Burch was made aware of the incident by her husband, Robert Burch when he said, “Do you see what that guy is doing to that little girl?” She turned and saw that the man, presumably the child’s father, had the girls hair wrapped around the shopping cart’s handle and held down with his hand as he pushed the shopping cart through the store. As this was playing out, the child could be heard pleading to be let go, saying, “Please stop, I promise I won’t do it again, please stop!” according to Burch.

Burch took out her cell phone and snapped images of the incident, after which she told the man “to let the little girl’s hair go.” His reply was to mind her own business. Burch retorted, “Right now this little girl is my business, you need to let her hair go now!” His reply was “I grew up just fine,” Burch wrote.[xyz-ihs snippet=”adsense-body-ad”]After Burch took pictures of the man and child in the store, she said she called police, and found that an officer happened to be on the premises. When informed of the situation, the officer told Burch that if it was up to him, the man would be taken to jail, Burch wrote in her posting. But, the officer added that his Sergeant was responding to the scene and so he had to wait.

When the sergeant arrived and was shown the images on Burch’s phone, Burch said she was told that “they couldn’t take him to jail because there were no visible bruises, nor was her hair missing,” she said. According to Burch, the sergeant informed her that “he has a right to discipline his children.”

Other witnesses at the scene said that the man grabbed her hair and pulled her to the basket because she wasn’t standing right next to the cart.

Commentators were all over the spectrum, some in complete agreement with Burch, while others also said that it was none of her business.

An investigation has been opened by Cleveland, Texas police to determine if the man has exhibited a pattern of inappropriate discipline. The city’s police chief, Darrel Broussard told a local news station, that authorities are “very concerned for the well-being of the child.” Broussard added, ” have to applaud those witnesses who attempted to intervene for the safety of the child.”

Texas Child Protective Services are looking into the incident as well.

Texas Child Abuse Laws Chapter 261 says, “child abuse is an act or omission that endangers or impairs a child’s physical, mental or emotional health and development. Child abuse may take the form of physical or emotional injury, sexual abuse, sexual exploitation, physical neglect, medical neglect, or inadequate supervision.”

Thus far, no charges have been filed.[xyz-ihs snippet=”Adversal-468×60″]

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