A Siloam Springs woman was arrested Tuesday after police said she picked up her 15-month-old daughter by the neck and swung her side-to-side.
Felicia Atkinson, 27, was arrested on suspicion of endangering the welfare of a child, third-degree domestic battery and second-degree assault on a family member. She remained Wednesday in the Washington County Detention Center on $5,000 bond, according to the Washington County Sheriff’s Office.
Atkinson’s arraignment is set for May 16, according to the Sheriff’s Office.
The suspect was at a home on Christian Avenue in Springdale when she started “going off” on everybody in the house, accusing people of stealing her purse, eyewitnesses told police.
Atkinson then grabbed her daughter by the neck with both hands and lifted the child off of the ground, saying she was going to leave, according to a preliminary report from the Washington County Prosecutor’s Office.
The suspect swung the child side-to-side by the neck several times while eyewitnesses tried to retrieve the girl from the woman, police said. The woman’s uncle then tackled the suspect, and bystanders took the child from the woman, according to the preliminary report.
A bystander told police the child and her sibling had been living at the home with family for the last three months. The mother sometimes visited, but lived elsewhere, police said.
The suspect has a history that includes arrests on suspicion of fourth-degree sexual assault and introducing a controlled substance into the body of another person, according to the preliminary report.
