New Details in Peterson Abuse Case
COOPER: Hey, welcome back. New developments tonight in the Adrian Peterson story that people have been talking over -- ever since the Texas grand jury indicted the Minnesota running back late last week on a felony child abuse charge. Now, to remind you, this is what he did to his son with a switch, a tree branch, the child is just four years old. Now the injuries included cuts on his thighs, buttocks as well as his scrotum. Today, three days after benching him in less than 24 hours after a loss at the New England Patriots, the Vikings cleared him to play next weekend. At the same time, Peterson through his lawyer released a statement saying he did what he did out of love and according to the way he himself was raised. And now, it's a style of parenting many say they recognize are actually lived through whether they endorse it now or not.</s>CRIS CARTER, ESPN ANALYST: This is the 21st century, my mom was wrong. She did the best she could but she was wrong about some of that stuff she taught me. And I promised my kids I won't teach that mess to them. You can't beat a kid to make them do what they want to do.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That's correct</s>CARTER: The only thing I'm proud about is the team that I played for, they did the right thing.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.</s>CARTER: Take them off the field. I don't care where -- are we in a climate right now? I don't care what it is. Take him off the dang-on field because you know what? As a man, that's the only thing we really respect. We don't respect no women. We don't respect no kids. The only thing Roger and them can do, take them off the field because they respect that.</s>COOPER: Some of the reactions of sports television. There's plenty more playing out. More on the story now from Ed Lavandera.</s>ED LAVANDERA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: The pictures are startling. Skin lacerations inflicted by Adrian Peterson on his four-year-old son. The professional football star called it a whipping using a thin tree branch 10 to 15 times. Texas prosecutor say it is child abuse.</s>PHIL GRANT, ASSISTANT DISTRICT ATTORNEY: A grand jury having indicted this case looked at the injuries that were inflicted upon this child and determined that that discipline was not reasonable and did not reflect the community standard of what was reasonable discipline.</s>LAVANDERA: We've also learned new details of text messages Peterson allegedly sent the boy's mother in Minnesota after the lashing. Peterson wrote, "He felt bad after the fact when I noticed the switch was wrapping around hitting the thigh." Another text was more graphic. "Got him in the nuts once I noticed but I felt so bad. I'm all tearing that butt up when needed. I start putting them in timeout to save the whopping for needed memories." And in a later message, Peterson wrote, "Never do I go overboard but all my kids will know hey daddy has the biggie heart but don't play no games when it comes to acting right." Nick Wright is a sports radio talk show host in Houston where Adrian Peterson lives part of the year. He's familiar with the new and extensive details in the Peterson police report. According to Wright, the incident happened after the little boy had pushed another of Peterson's children off of a motorcycle video game.</s>NICK WRIGHT, SPORTS RADIO 610: He called it a standard whooping. He said the only parts of this that were different from usual were when the switch wrapped around the child's leg and cut the cut the front of his leg and the one that hit the child on the genital was like, he said -- aside from that, he was asked by police, "Are the marks on the child, you know, worse than usual?" And he said, "On his butt? No." He said, "On his butt, that's, you know, that's what a whooping is."</s>LAVANDERA: Wright says the little boy also told police he was scared of his father that he was often punished in what the boy described as the whooping room and that Peterson had lots of belts. The boy talked about his father putting leaves in his mouth while he was lashed. Wright also says Peterson spoke with investigators in a 40-minute phone conversation where he justified disciplining his son with this kind of force.</s>WRIGHT: You listen to the audio of Adrian Peterson with the police and he comes across, honestly, as a loving parent who truly believes he was doing what was right for his son, who feels badly about too specific unintentional injuries. Adrian Peterson is very self assured that he -- not only loves his children but that this type of discipline, at least he sounded self assured at the time, that this type of discipline was necessary and this type of discipline was more mild than the discipline he received that helps turn him into the man that he is today.</s>LAVANDERA: In a statement, Adrian Peterson wrote that after meeting with a psychologist, "...there are other alternative ways of disciplining a child that may be more appropriate. I am without a doubt not a child abuser." And after missing only one game, the Minnesota Vikings announced that Adrian Peterson will be back on the football field this coming weekend.</s>COOPER: What else did Peterson say when he spoke to investigators?</s>LAVANDERA: Well, Nick Wright told us that, you know, he made that phone and as Adrian Peterson said today, he spoke with authorities and investigators over the phone for about 40 minutes or so and Adrian Peterson said in his statement that he did this against the advice of his attorney. But he also did mentioned that this wasn't the only time that he had doled out a severe punishment to this son during that visit back in May that he had there. And it was according to Nick Wright from what he was able to gather from the information at hand is that the authorities didn't know about that second punishment but Adrian Peterson told them about it.</s>COOPER: All right. Ed, thanks very much. Up next, the bottom line impacted this and the Ray Rice story on Peterson-Rice and the NFL.