A Middle River woman was arrested and charged Tuesday with child abuse and assault after a video that Baltimore County police say appears to show her apparently striking two young children went viral on social media last week.
Rachel Marie Pietro, 26, of the first block of Cool Breeze Drive, faces two counts of second-degree child abuse and two counts of second-degree assault, according to court documents. She had no attorney listed in court records, and no phone number was listed for her address.
The video, which was posted on YouTube and other social media platforms, appears to show a woman striking a child on a bed, then flipping the child over and striking the child on the backside. She then pulls another child by the shirt collar and strikes the second child repeatedly in the head. The children in the video were 5 and 6 years old; another child, age 2, was not in the video, police said.
One of the children told police and a social services worker that her mother repeatedly hit the children, threw one of them against a wall, pulled their hair, and would lock them in a 3-foot-by-3-foot wooden toy box as punishment, according to charging documents. The child told investigators that she and her sibling sometimes hid in the toy box from their parents and spent the night inside it.
The girl had an 3-inch bruise on her leg, which she said was from her mother’s hitting her, police said.
Pietro told police she was having a psychotic break when she made the video, and had wanted her husband to come home from work and take her to the hospital, according to charging documents. She told police she hit one child because the child had pulled scissors and a knife on her, and the other because he had bitten her.
The incident is believed to have happened on Jan. 30, according to court records. Pietro is being held without bail, and her children have been transferred to the Department of Social Services, police said.
Two people died after a fire in East Baltimore early Saturday morning, and city police said they are investigating the incident for arson. (Kim Hairston, Ulysses Munoz / Baltimore Sun)
Two people died after a fire in East Baltimore early Saturday morning, and city police said they are investigating the incident for arson. (Kim Hairston, Ulysses Munoz / Baltimore Sun)
Crime reporter Kevin Rector talks about the death of Montell "Telly" Pridgett, a boxer who was shot dead just blocks from his Upton home early Wednesday morning. (Ulysses Munoz / Baltimore Sun)
Crime reporter Kevin Rector talks about the death of Montell “Telly” Pridgett, a boxer who was shot dead just blocks from his Upton home early Wednesday morning. (Ulysses Munoz / Baltimore Sun)
Baltimore Sun reporter Jessica Anderson contributed to this article.
cmcampbell@baltsun.com
@cmcampbell6
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