{"id":304917,"date":"2026-06-12T07:48:24","date_gmt":"2026-06-12T07:48:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/304917\/"},"modified":"2026-06-12T07:48:24","modified_gmt":"2026-06-12T07:48:24","slug":"florida-city-woman-forced-younger-brother-to-kneel-on-rice-for-hours-cops-say","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/304917\/","title":{"rendered":"Florida City woman forced younger brother to kneel on rice for hours, cops say"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"text text--small text--normal text--primary\">Published:\u00a0June 11, 2026 at 11:42 AM<\/p>\n<p class=\"text text--small text--normal text--primary\">Updated:\u00a0June 11, 2026 at 12:26 PM<\/p>\n<p>lead-art-block.fullscreen-enterExpand<img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" data-chromatic=\"ignore\" alt=\"\" class=\"c-image\" loading=\"eager\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/TONSQRAU6BCSBDFQK2V6Y4FUOI.jpg\"  width=\"1920\" height=\"1080\"\/>Nataly Cruz (MDCR\/Pexels) <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">FLORIDA CITY, Fla. \u2014 Florida City police say a child went to his neighbor\u2019s house on Wednesday for help, saying \u201che couldn\u2019t take it anymore.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.local10.com\/espanol\/2026\/06\/11\/policia-mujer-de-florida-city-obligo-a-su-hermano-menor-a-arrodillarse-sobre-arroz-durante-horas\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.local10.com\/espanol\/2026\/06\/11\/policia-mujer-de-florida-city-obligo-a-su-hermano-menor-a-arrodillarse-sobre-arroz-durante-horas\/\">Leer en espa\u00f1ol<\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">That\u2019s because they say his older sister \u2015 his guardian \u2015 was forcing him to kneel on rice inside of a shed for hours.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">According to the Florida City Police Department, the brother of Nataly Francelia Cruz, 26, went to the neighbor just before 4:45 p.m. and said he had been kneeling on the rice since around 11 a.m., saying \u201cthis is not the first time he has been punished this way when he misbehaves.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">\u201cI observed minor injuries on his knees consistent with kneeling for a long time on a surface with rice,\u201d an FCPD officer wrote in the report. \u201cHe also reported that while kneeling, he attempted to use the restroom inside the house but his sister refused to let him inside the house.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">Cruz, police said, has been taking care of the boy since their mother was deported.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">A statement she made to authorities was redacted from the publicly-released report.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">Police arrested Cruz on a child abuse charge and took her to the Turner Guilford Knight Correctional Center, where she was being held on a $2,500 bond as of Thursday morning. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">The Honduran national also faces an immigration hold.<\/p>\n<p>\ud83c\udfe0 News From Your Neighborhood<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph b-article-body__copyright\">Copyright 2026 by WPLG Local10.com &#8211; All rights reserved.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" data-chromatic=\"ignore\" alt=\"Chris Gothner\" class=\"c-image\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/https:\/\/author-service-images-sandbox-us-east-1.publishing.aws.arc.pub\/wplginc\/3be3b5ed-fb4b-43ce-8b.jpeg\"  width=\"100\" height=\"100\"\/>Chris Gothner <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph b-author-bio__author-description\">Chris Gothner joined the Local 10 News team in 2022 as a Digital Journalist.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Published:\u00a0June 11, 2026 at 11:42 AM Updated:\u00a0June 11, 2026 at 12:26 PM lead-art-block.fullscreen-enterExpandNataly Cruz (MDCR\/Pexels) FLORIDA CITY, Fla.&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":304918,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[28,30,29],"class_list":["post-304917","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-florida","tag-florida","tag-florida-headlines","tag-florida-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/304917","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=304917"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/304917\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/304918"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=304917"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=304917"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=304917"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}