Parents Speak About YouTube Video
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Updated: 11:17 PM Aug 6, 2008
Parents Speak About YouTube Video
Parents of young children from Putnam County forced to fight each other in a YouTube video spoke Wednesday about the incident.
Posted: 9:33 PM Aug 5, 2008
Reporter: Will Jones
Email Address: will.jones@wsaz.com
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Update at 6 p.m. Wednesday

PUTNAM COUNTY, W.Va. (WSAZ) -- Parents of young children from Putnam County forced to fight each other in a YouTube video spoke Wednesday about the incident.

The children's mothers say they had no idea their children were involved until they saw it on the news.

"I was really devastated, angry and upset," said parent Stacy McMasters.

Her ex-husband Kenneth McMasters now has custody of his children because of the YouTube video. Deputies took the children away from his ex-wife.

"My kids have to do without their biological mother for something I didn't even do," Stacy McMasters said.

Last December, McMasters faced child neglect and abuse charges -- after deputies say she left her baby in the car for nearly an hour in a Foodland parking lot. It was 37 degrees that day.

"I made an honest mistake," she said. "I regret it."

Whatever happens as a result of the YouTube video, however, the real victims appear to be the children.

Original story

PUTNAM COUNTY, W.Va. (WSAZ) -- A disturbing video on You Tube has a West Virginia sheriff and state child services looking into possible criminal charges.

The video involves local teens, toddlers, fighting and swearing.

Poca High Administrators said the first viewing of the You Tube video was disturbing.

The short clip, now deleted from the web site, seems to show older teens urging crying toddlers to fist fight.

And after the fight, cursing lessons.

Poca High School is shown often by the teenage girl who posted the video's You Tube page.

They don't think about repercussions down the road, who might get hurt, about maybe breaking the law,” Vic Donaldson, principal of Poca High, said.

The Putman County sheriff said his investigation just started Monday night, and may lead to possible child endangerment charges.

“You don’t know if a child may be removed from the home because of this,” Mark Smith, Putnam County sheriff, said.

West Virginia’s child protective services say the video may reveal possible child abuse or neglect, neglect involving the toddlers, teens and parents.

“We give the kids freedom, but we have to realize they're teens and do make bad decisions,” Pat Burlingame, assistant principal of Poca High, said.

On her You Tube page, which includes videos describing a sex act and a holocaust game, the teen who shot the clips says no harm was done in the kid video and nobody was hurt.

Poca High and all West Virginia high schools block students from accessing You Tube, Facebook and Myspace pages on any school computer.


Latest Comments

Posted by: debbie on Aug 9, 2008 at 05:55 AM

we all make mistakes with our children from time to time but mistakes that this mother has made, there is no excuse! you do not leave your babies in the hands of teenagers!
Posted by: ???? on Aug 8, 2008 at 01:12 PM

The only way the parents should be to blame is IF they knew this was going on and condoned it or did nothing to stop it. They need to possibly choose better babysitters for their children. Why does she have her kids back if she was dumb enough to leave a baby in a car because she was too lazy to take it inside with her?
Posted by: wow on Aug 8, 2008 at 12:46 PM

This is what happens when you smoke too much pot, you drink too much beer, you have no worthy goals in life, and you choose to reproduce which contributes to the dumbifying of this country. I guess somebody has got to be on the bottom of the gene pool... The greatest gift that these self absorbed parents could do for all of these children is to put them up for adoption to families with values and an intact family structure. Then, maybe they would have a chance in life
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