A 65-year-old Scranton woman choked a 4-year-old boy at a children\u2019s play and party destination Friday, police charge.<\/p>\n
Officers responded to Bee\u2019s Backyard at the Marketplace at Steamtown, 300 Lackawanna Ave., around 4:45 p.m. for a reported assault in progress, according to a criminal complaint. County dispatchers advised officers that a boy was actively being strangled, police said.<\/p>\n
Police identified a woman, Wendy Wassel, as matching the suspect\u2019s description; she was sitting with the victim in the common area, officers said.<\/p>\n
Wassel told officers she took the boy, who is autistic, and two other children she babysits, ages 3 and 4, to Bee\u2019s Backyard, when the boy\u201c]\u00a0began to act out and run after the other children, according to the criminal complaint.<\/p>\n
Wassel told police she took the boy out of the play area and put him in a \u201ccompliance hold\u201d meant to calm him down, officers said.<\/p>\n
Surveillance video shows Wassel enters the playroom and forcefully drags the boy by his right arm, according to the criminal complaint. His feet left the ground when he was picked up, officers added.<\/p>\n
The boy told police the woman grabbed him by the neck and dragged him to a table, officers said. The boy also told police he was unable to breathe from the time he was being dragged until the time he got to the common area.<\/p>\n
Witnesses reported seeing Wassel choke the boy and strike him in the rib and abdomen area, according to the criminal complaint.<\/p>\n
One witness feared the boy\u2019s arm would be dislocated due to the amount of force Wassel used to pull the boy out of the play area, police said.<\/p>\n
The child was transported to Geisinger Community Medical Center. He was also taken into emergency custody by the Scranton Police Department and turned over to a caseworker from the Lackawanna County Office of Youth and Family Services, officers said.<\/p>\n
.\u201d]<\/p>\n
Police charged Wassel, 1514 Luzerne St., with strangulation, endangering the welfare of children and simple assault.<\/p>\n
A preliminary hearing is scheduled for May 26 at 10:30 a.m.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A 65-year-old Scranton woman choked a 4-year-old boy at a children\u2019s play and party destination Friday, police charge.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":197012,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[202,201,182,139,28,178,180,179,181],"class_list":["post-197011","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-scranton","tag-crime-and-public-safety","tag-lackawanna-county","tag-local-news","tag-news","tag-pennsylvania","tag-scranton","tag-scranton-headlines","tag-scranton-news","tag-top-stories-stt"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/197011","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=197011"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/197011\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/197012"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=197011"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=197011"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=197011"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}