This week, police arrested four Arkansas educators for allegedly participating in what authorities described as a “makeshift child fight club.”
Following a court hearing on April 21, Craighead County District Judge David Boling found probable cause to charge Mary Tracy Morrison, Michael Bean, Kristin Bell, and Kathrine Lipscomb with permitting child abuse, according to KAIT.
Prosecuting attorney Sonia Hagood told the court that she filed the charges against the four educators after a video of an incident at The Delta Institute for the Developing Brain surfaced online.
A teacher can be heard instructing a student to hit another boy “in the private area” at one point in the video, according to Hagood.
The prosecutor stated in court that Morrison was the alleged “ringleader of this makeshift child fight club” and requested that her bail be set at $250,000.
According to The Jonesboro Sun, all four surrendered willingly after learning that arrest warrants had been issued for them in April.
The Sun also identified Morrison, 50, as the school’s owner, and Lipscomb, 45, as a teacher. Bean, 38, and Bell, 36, are both parents of students at the school, according to the source.
Hagood had asked the judge to set Lipscomb’s bail at $100,000 in court. “This one sat there the whole time, watching the abuse. “If you had seen what I saw, you would be as outraged as I am,” Hagood stated.
According to Craighead County jail records, the judge set Lipscomb’s bail at $100,000, while Bell and Bean were each ordered held on $10,000 bail.
The lawyers for all four defendants had not seen the video in question before the hearing on Monday, April 21. Morrison’s attorney, Paul Stanley, informed the judge that the arrest affidavit filed for his clients and their three co-defendants was “insufficient.”
Jonesboro Right Now reported that all four defendants were released soon after being booked into jail on April 21.
They will next appear in Craighead County Circuit Court on May 22nd.
Hagood requested in court on Monday that all case-related filings be sealed for 90 days while she conducts an investigation into the school.