LEE COUNTY, Fla. — A Florida mother is under fire for a controversial punishment Wednesday. A Lee County deputy slapped handcuffs on her 5-year-old boy, and the child's mother set the whole thing up.
VIDEO: Mom Has Deputy Cuff Her 5-Year-Old
"That's not a way to treat a child, that's not a way to teach a lesson to a little boy," a witness said.
The witness snapped a photo of the boy with his hands behind his back in cuffs outside a 7-Eleven in Lehigh Acres. The scene brought her to tears. The witness didn't know it was not a real arrest.
The boy's mother staged it after she caught him playing with matches. She asked a friend at the sheriff's office to teach him a lesson.
"Do you feel that may have been over the top?" a reporter asked the mother.
"No, absolutely not. If more parents did what I did, we wouldn't have the crime we have now," she replied.
The witness said the deputy even put the crying child in the back of the cruiser and threatened to take him to jail.