Florida Man Accused Of Hog-Tying Girl Outside School

Police arrested a Jacksonville, Florida, man for allegedly hogtying a young girl while picking her up from school.

Alexander Crabtree, 38, is accused of holding down a little girl, around the age of 6, by her throat, yelling at the child and threatening to break her jaw, according to WJXX.

He reportedly told the young girl, “Shut the f*** up or I’ll kill you.”

A witness said the incident happened on May 26 at an elementary school in Mandarin, Florida.

A father who witnessed the incident told WFOX he initially thought Crabtree was playing around with the child, but then realized it was much more serious.

“[The] closer I got, I realized she was screaming for help,” he said.

The father, who asked the news station to remain unidentified, recalled what he heard: “The first thing I heard was, ‘I’ll break your (expletive) jaw if you don’t the shut the (expletive) up right now.'”

The father continued: “He was like, ‘You better shut the (expletive) up or you’re going to pay for this.'”

The witness said as he watched the man screaming at and grabbing the young girl, he tried to intervene, but the school’s principal showed up just as he attempted to.

The principal called police on the man, but by the time police arrived, the man and the girl had left.

“He went and got a rope and came back with it,” the father said of Crabtree. “It was a skinny, little dog leash — like a 10-foot dog leash — and started wrapping it around her legs like he was going to hogtie her.”

Police later tracked down and arrested Crabtree. During an interview with investigators, the suspect said he was at the school because the girl had been suspended for holding scissors up to another student’s throat.

After being suspended, the girl reportedly refused to leave the school. Witnesses told police they saw the girl screaming and grabbing onto poles.

The father who witnessed the incident said that regardless of the circumstances, he believes there was a better way for the man to handle the situation.

“To go to the extreme of tying someone up, putting your hand around their throat,” he said. “Telling em you’re going to (expletive) break their jaw.”

Police arrested Crabtree after the incident and charged him with child abuse and resisting an officer without violence. 

Crabtree is a registered sex offender, WFOX reports.

Sources: WJXX, WFOX / Photo Credit: Gustavo Castillo/Wikimedia Commons