Tulsa Man Charged With Repeatedly Using Taser On 5-Year-Old

A suspected child abuse case in Tulsa has even veteran detectives saying they have never seen anything quite like it before.

Police say a man used a taser gun on about 20 times on a 5-year-old boy, leaving burns all over his body.

The little boy went to school last Thursday and said his arm was hurting, because his step dad hit him with a board several times. He said it was hard enough to cause him to keep falling to the floor.

The school called police, and when forensic experts interviewed the boy, he told them he had also been tased repeatedly.

Doctor Michael Baxter is a child abuse pediatrician and happens to be the doctor who examined the boy.

Baxter wanted to experience first-hand what it felt like to be tased, so asked a detective to tase him on the arm. He said the force of it literally knocked him from his chair and, even five minutes later, when talking about it, the skin on his arm was still burning.

"It's really indescribable. Takes your breath away. I literally hit the floor with one hand and caught myself. I'm still a little shaky from it," Baxter said.

He said he can't imagine having it done 15 or 20 times and he's a grown-up.

Detective Danielle Bishop has been a child crisis detective for 12 years and said she has never seen a case like this, never even heard of a child being tased repeatedly.

"He had over 15 burn marks all over his body, back, arms, shoulders, stomach, butt and feet from being tased," Bishop said.

She interviewed the suspect, 24-year-old Phillip Hudson, Jr., the ex-boyfriend of the boy's mother. She said he lives next door to the boy's mother, and because she works two jobs, police say Hudson takes care of the boy a lot, and has for years.

Bishop said Hudson confessed, said he knew it was a bad idea, and that he wouldn't do it again.

"I even asked him if this is something he read on the Internet—where did this come from? That's when he stated, when he was spanking the little boy, it was leaving bruises, so he didn't want to do that. So, he decided to use a taser," Bishop said.

Hudson was arrested Tuesday afternoon. He faces three counts of child abuse.

Police say Hudson was disciplining the boy for not paying attention during reading and coloring time.

"I can't imagine anyone would think it would be okay to tase a 5-year-old for not doing homework, not paying attention," Bishop said.

Doctors say the boy's taser burns were in various stages of healing. The boy was taken into protective custody, for the time being.