Holder Faces Contempt Charge; Giffords' House Seat Up For Grabs; Father Kills Daughter's Molester; Official On Tape Beating Stepson
ROMANS: Good morning. Welcome back to STARTING POINT. Let's get right to Zoraida Sambolin for today's headlines. Good morning.</s>SAMBOLIN: Good morning, Christine. A House committee is considering holding Attorney General Eric Holder in contempt of Congress. A vote is scheduled in eight days. The committee says Holder has had more than enough time to produce documents they've requested for their investigation of "Fast and Furious," a flawed gun smuggling program that wound up arming Mexican cartels. A battle for Gabrielle Giffords' House seat will be decided today in a special election in Arizona. Former Giffords' aide, Ron Barber faces a tough challenge from Republican Jesse Kelly, an ex-Marine and an Iraq war vet who's backed by the Tea Party. Barber was wounded in the 2011 Tucson shooting rampage that critically injured Giffords and killed six others. Take a look at this shocking video of a Florida woman set on fire in an apparent domestic dispute in Boynton Beach. Police say the suspect, 52-year-old Roosevelt Monster poured gasoline on the mother of his 4-year-old son and torched her after pulling her out of a convenience store. He is behind bars this morning facing attempted first degree murder charges. And a father's rage turns deadly, but neighbors in the small town of Shiner, Texas are feeling his pain. Police say the father beat a man to death after catching him molesting his 4-year-old daughter.</s>SHERIFF MICAH HARMON, LAVACA COUNTY, TEXAS: Defense of her trying to get her away from him, he struck the individual in the head several times.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I don't think he should be arrested for it. I don't think any charges should be filed.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: If somebody abused my grandchild like he did, I think he deserved everything he got.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Especially 4 years old. That's terrible.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes.</s>SAMBOLIN: The sheriff says the little girl suffered mental trauma, but physically she's OK. The father has not been arrested. A grand jury will decide on possible charges in that case. In this morning's "House Call," are you sleep deprived? If you get fewer than six hours of sleep each night, you could have a higher risk of stroke, even if you are otherwise healthy. A study from the University of Alabama found that early symptoms of strokes like numbness down one side of the body, vision loss, dizziness or losing the ability to express yourself could be associated with less sleep. But scientists say more research is needed there. A huge blow to autism researchers. A freezer malfunctioned at Harvard's brain bank damaging a third of the world's largest collection of brain samples used to study autism. Officials say the freezer's temperatures rose too high and the alarms that were supposed to go off did not sound. Researchers say the damaged brain samples were a priceless collection. Investigators say foul play cannot be ruled out. Boy, that is terribly unfortunate -- Christine.</s>ROMANS: I know and on Twitter this morning, a lot of people who are advocates for finding, you know, the source and cure for autism are frankly just really upset about this.</s>SAMBOLIN: Absolutely.</s>ROMANS: A lot of parents talking about it this morning too. Thanks, Zoraida. A disturbing story, a stepfather caught on camera, hitting his stepson with a belt during a game of catch. He could face some felony child abuse charges. The Imperial County Sheriff's Office plans to file a case with the district attorney this afternoon. A neighbor took this video of Anthony Sanchez, hitting his stepson in their backyard last week.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I'm having a problem with you for beating the -- because he won't catch the ball.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Do you know my son?</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I don't know your son, but I'm watching you. I'm -- a father too.</s>ROMANS: Sanchez was arrested after turning himself in. He has since resigned from his elected post there in the town. Joining us now are Anthony Sanchez's attorney, Ryan Childers and psychologist, Dr. Dale Atkins. Thanks for both being here. I want to start with you, Ryan. First of all, the video looks bad. He knows it looks bad, right? He's seeking parenting classes or counseling. But this is not abuse, you say, this is him disciplining a child with behavioral problems?</s>RYAN CHILDERS, ATTORNEY FOR ANTHONY SANCHEZ: Well, what I'm saying is that my client in doing this was intending to discipline his son. It wasn't about a son --</s>ROMANS: Disciplining him for what?</s>CHILDERS: I want to be careful. My client wants to be careful. We don't want to make this about Zach. This isn't Zach's fault. My client understands that. So I don't want to go into that, but a lot of people said this is about a game of catch and because he wasn't playing catch correctly. This is why this happened and that's not the case.</s>ROMANS: This is during a game of catch. Tell us in your client's words what was happening here.</s>CHILDERS: Again, to do that, I'd have to get into what was going on with Zach and I don't want to make this about Zach. This isn't Zach's fault. My client has seen the video, I've seen the video. We realize that it's hard to watch. My client has regrets about this and realizes he may need to learn some better skills for dealing with a childhood behavioral issues such as this. But the question here, should my client spend six years in prison on felony charges? Is this illegal? Spanking is not illegal in California and California law --</s>ROMANS: Was that a belt? Because we can see it from the video that he reaches down to pick something up. He was throwing the ball earlier and he had something on the ground, looks like a belt. Picked up the belt to go -- that was a belt that he was spanking him with?</s>CHILDERS: This is a belt that he was spanking him with. But again, California law says that using something other than your hand does not make it illegal. The question here, parents can decide for themselves what's right and wrong in their own discipline, but the question for us is what's illegal.</s>ROMANS: What does the boy's mother, she's on a pre-planned, family vacation, your client stayed behind. How is she doing and how is the child doing?</s>CHILDERS: Well, needless to say the whole family is torn up by this entire event. I mean, this -- before they went to authorities, this was put on Facebook. And so my client has suffered tremendous amount of outrage about this and of course, young Zach has had an event that was horrible for him, exposed to the world. This is something that he's going to have to deal with when he goes back to class and for quite a long time.</s>ROMANS: He's aware -- Zach is aware of this has become a national story.</s>CHILDERS: The family has tried to shield him as much as possible, but it just couldn't be done to the extent they would like. So he is aware, yes.</s>ROMANS: How often would your client discipline the child this way?</s>CHILDERS: In my understanding is that from the mother, the maternal grandfather and everybody who has been around my client, they've never seen an instance where they felt that his discipline with young Zach was ever inappropriate or crossed the line.</s>ROMANS: You talked about his behavioral issues. The family is dealing with the behavioral issues -- this is how they are dealing with it?</s>CHILDERS: I can't speak to other instances of discipline, but certainly they believe that spanking is an appropriate form of discipline. That's not --</s>ROMANS: And this is the spanking?</s>CHILDERS: In this instance there was a belt used and I'm not saying in every instance of discipline, there's a belt used. I can't speak to that. I don't know about that.</s>ROMANS: I want to bring in Dr. Dale Atkins here. I want to ask you. For childhood behavioral issues, is this an appropriate response?</s>DR. DALE ATKINS, PSYCHOLOGIST: It is generally inappropriate response. Children with behavioral issues particularly children who have attention issues, have difficulty regulating themselves. They have difficulty staying in the moment. And they really do better not with aggression, which then teaches them that it is a way to deal with problems and do deal with their own self-regulation issues. But rather ways you can deal with them more appropriately are trying to address them personally --</s>ROMANS: And when you talk self-regulation, I mean, I think for a lot of parents, this is when I child is compelled to do something. A child can't say. I'm not going to do something. Whether it's a movement or a sound or acting out, they can't regulate themselves.</s>ATKINS: That's exactly right. That's one of the issues. When people talk about trying to discipline a child who has behavioral issues, the issue is the child has issues regulating their own behavior. And that's what this -- in part this is about, but I would like to go back to one thing you said, which was this really isn't about the child. This really is about the child. I know you're speaking about a legal perspective, but what we're talking about is how we deal with children. Whether they have behavioral issues or not, and I believe that if we all had a sense of when a parent is angry or when a parent is frustrated. This is the time that you don't want to be engaged in a physical interaction with your child. That's when many people are interacting --</s>MARTIN: So you're saying never spank a child? Are you saying at all?</s>ROMANS: This isn't a spanking --</s>MARTIN: I got you, but the reality is, spanking is going to be a part of this conversation because it goes beyond this incidence. I'm asking you, do you believe in never spanking a child?.</s>HOOVER: Let me preface that. There has been a change in thought about this from professionals over the course of time. When I was quite young, spanking was considered the standard for disciplining children.</s>ATKINS: You're asking me a direct question and my direct answer is that I do not believe in spanking children. I do not believe in hitting children. I believe and so much of the research in my own 40 years of experience working with children and working with families, dealing with abuse for most of my life, is that it does not have a positive effect. Not only on the child, it does not have a positive effect and has a deleterious effect on the relationship between the parent and child often. It does nothing to enhance a child's self-esteem and makes parents feel terrible about themselves afterwards and children remember very, very well, not only what was said to them, but was done to them.</s>MARTIN: Isn't there a difference between abuse and spanking. I can tell you flat out, I got spanked and I can tell you right now that had my dad not disciplined me and my brother and my three sisters. Look, we would have been off that deep end and not one of his children he had to go bail out. So some people sit here and I can tell you right now, some people say that's not right and proper. I can tell you right now, from my own experience, I can imagine where I had been had my dad not put his foot down and discipline us.</s>ATKINS: There are ways to put one's foot down. There are ways to deal with children and most people in this country have been spanked. Most children have been humiliated. Most children have been made to feel in a situations where they are really not in control of themselves that they are made to feel less than. One of things about hitting kids, is that what it says is it's OK for a big person to hit a little person. It's OK for a strong person to hit a weaker person. I think there are ways -- I don't know the discussion about having is spanking good or bad. The issue is what are we doing to our children and what are we doing as a society that's my point.</s>ROMANS: A lot of us come from the angle of what happened to us when we were kids. This is a story about child with behavioral issues and this particular case and whether this is routine spanking, which I think anybody watching this does not think this is a kid being spanked. This is a belt and some -- an adult who's clearly angry. We can't hear what was going on there. You don't want to tell us exactly what the behavior was an elicited this response. Is your client going to do something like this again do you think?</s>CHILDERS: Well, I don't believe -- I think that my client has learned that this may have been excessive and he's very sorry about the fact that there may have been some excessive action here. But again, this comes back to is this a felony that he should spend six years in prison for? Is this something that is illegal? I realize people have opinions about discipline and seeing the video inflamed a lot of people. But what is the appropriate legal course here or has the sheriff's department overreached because of the pressure they've gotten from social media and the blogosphere.</s>ROMANS: Can I ask you another question? Is this family -- do the school district or whatever, do they have help in support with the behavioral issues and the ADHD part of this story?</s>CHILDERS: Absolutely.</s>ROMANS: Because there are a lot of professionals, early interventions, a lot of things that states trained adults who can help families figure out how to handle behavior that is hard to contain.</s>CHILDERS: And Zach has had treatment and ongoing treatment both with a psychiatrist and a psychologist.</s>ROMANS: Ryan Childers, thank you so much. Thank you so much also, Dr. Dale Atkins. I'm sure it's a discussion we'll continue to have. Coming up, some startling news, the American family's net worth drastically shrinking. We can actually quantify what went down the drain. How many years of savings and investment was lost in the recession. We'll tell you what that number is after the break. Also a photo journalist risks his life to show the world was going on inside Syria. His amazing video of a country at war with itself. You're watching STARTING POINT.