Man charged in abuse
of young daughters

Copyright © 2008
Gallup Independent
By Philip Stake
Staff writer

GALLUP — Linuan Freeman is facing two felony charges of child abuse for allegedly flogging his daughters.

A 9-year-old girl reported to authorities Monday, Aug. 25, that her father had been striking her sister and herself with a belt, according to Officer Roseanne Morissette’s report. The sister’s age is not reported.

As police arrived, the 9-year-old girl was crying and holding her head as she stood waiting in front of her home inside Hillcrest Trailer Park. She told Morissette and Officer Josie Bowman that her father had hit her in the head. The girl’s younger sister was waiting inside, in the back bedroom curled into the fetal position, when Morissette arrived to inspect her wounds, which proved substantial.

Morissette described a 2-inch in diameter, fresh blood blister amidst several red stripes consistent with a belt lash. She suffered similar lashes on her face, according to the report. More wounds were found on her legs and arms. And there was a large bruise on her shoulder.

Linuan Freeman, the girls’ father, was present at the time and said he was disciplining the younger girl because she had come home from school with a note that said she had touched other students inappropriately.

Morissette and Bowman cuffed Freeman.

“You hit your children with belts,” he said to officer Morissette.

“I don’t,” she said.

The officers then began to take evidentiary photographs of the girls’ wounds, at which time Freeman’s mother, the girl’s grandmother, who lives in the same trailer, asked the girls what they had done to make their father so angry.

Morissette informed the grandmother and the girls that they had done nothing to deserve such cruel punishment, that there is no reason to flog a child.

The grandmother was found unfit to take custody because of her inability to protect the girls, according to the report. The girls left with a social worker, in custody of the state.