An Augusta mother was locked up last week week for allegedly burning her 5-year-old son with a lit cigarette as punishment, the second time the boy’s teacher has reported burns to the child.
Tisheika Washington, 32, was charged with cruelty to children in the first degree and remained locked up Sunday at the Charles B. Webster Detention Center.
The injured child approached his teacher Thursday morning at Richmond Hill Elementary School and complained of pain to his back after being burned, according to a sheriff’s report. The teacher had him lift up his shirt, and she saw a circular wound that appeared to be recent.
The boy “informed her that his mother, Tisheika Washington, had burned him with a lit cigarette as punishment for his behavior,” the report says.
The teacher told the officer that she previously made a report to DFACS after the boy said his mother pressed a lit cigarette to his left temple until it caused a wound, the report says.
In his sheriff’s report this week, Deputy Devante Brown wrote that the earlier burning was never reported to the sheriff’s office. Yet, he observed a visible circular scar on the child’s left temple that “appeared to be similar to the end of a cigarette.” He also noted the new injury on the back that was a circular wound that was currently healing.
School officials said they had taken the victim to the school nurse for treatment of his injury. The nurse told the officer that she has experience with burn trauma patients and believed the wound on the child’s back was in multiple stages of healing.
“This could be caused by multiple injuries occurring in the same spot over time,” the report says.
Officials with the Department of Family and Children Services were notified again and responded to the school. Washington was found at her home on Nordahl Drive and detained.
