TIFTON — Two men were arrested and charged Monday with multiple counts of cruelty to children after a woman reported that two 15-year-old boys were burned and beaten Saturday as punishment for shoplifting. In a separate incident, police are continuing to investigate an altercation that led to a teenage girl being hit with a brick in the jaw and another young woman being cut on the forehead.

Gerald Jerome Graham Sr., 33, 334 Washington St., was charged with nine counts of first-degree cruelty to children and Willie Eugene Horton, 38, 1777 S. Broad St., Lenox, was charged with seven counts of first-degree cruelty to children.

According to an incident report filed at the Tifton Police Department, an officer was dispatched at 8:19 p.m. Sunday to meet with a Tift County sheriff’s deputy in reference to the case that occurred in the city. The officer talked with one of the boys and his mother. The officer noted in his report that he saw severe burns to the boy’s right forehand, left palm and left ear. The boy told the officer that he also had injuries on his buttocks. The boy was transported to Tift Regional Medical Center for treatment of his injuries and evaluation by Tift County EMS and the Department of Family and Children Services.

The officer called in TPD detectives, who were advised of the case. As the investigation continued, detectives learned of the second 15-year-old boy who had suffered similar wounds. That boy came to the TPD office later and talked with DFACS and detectives.

Det. Len Moore said that Graham is the father of one of the boys and Horton the father of the other. Moore said that he believed the boys were burned with a cigarette lighter, beaten and forced to burn each other’s ears after their mother picked them up where they were detained for allegedly shoplifting at Belk’s department store in the Tifton Mall.

Moore said that the men were charged with beating the boys with a paddle, leaving serious injuries, for burning them and for forcing the boys “under threat of violence” to burn each other’s ears for allegedly stealing earrings.

“They asked (the boys) what hand they used to steal and they burned those hands,” Moore said.

Moore said that Belk’s wasn’t going to pursue the shoplifting charges against the teens.

In an unrelated incident, a police officer was called at 3:50 p.m. Monday to 319 Old Omega Road by a 28-year-old woman who told him that the school bus had just stopped in front of her residence on Old Omega Road and her 16-year-old sister got off the bus and was walking toward Captain’s Point trailer park when a 17-year-old girl approached her and started an altercation. The woman told the officer she went to her sister’s defense and began arguing with the 17-year-old girl. It was moments later, the woman stated, that the alleged offender cut her with some kind of knife on the forehead. The officer remarked in his report that the woman was bleeding from the wound.

The alleged offender was gone with officers arrived and the woman was transported to Tift Regional Medical Center for treatment. A short time later, other officers located the young woman accused of causing the confrontation. When they talked with her, she told them that a black man threw a brick at her and the brick hit her on the left jaw. EMS was contacted and the woman was also transported to Tift Regional Medical Center for treatment.

The investigation in this case is ongoing and, as of Tuesday afternoon, no arrests had been made related to it.



To contact senior reporter Angie Thompson, call 382-4231.