Police officer makes young daughter stand outside in freezing temperatures holding cruel sign as ‘punishment’

‘I want to stab and kill my brother, I even take an antipsychotic. If you need to give pity, then give it to the victims.’

Those are the shocking words scrawled in blue ink across a handmade cardboard sign a six-year-old girl was forced to stand holding for hours in the snow.

Her parents Cody Allen Scott, 33, and Kylie Jo Scott, 34, were arrested after horrified passersby in Logansport, Indiana, called 911 on January 19.

Cody, a Logansport Police officer, brazenly confessed the crime when he responded to the report himself, claiming it was the only punishment that worked on her.

The girl was earlier forced to take another sign to school reading ‘I pee on everything and cover it up like a cat’, a Howard County DCS caseworker told police.

Another time she had to walk around Walmart carrying one that read, ‘I lie to hurt other people’, according to her school.

Cody confronted the 911 caller near where his daughter was standing in 18F weather, who told him ‘this baby is standing out here in the freezing cold with a sign’.

‘Yup, she comes out here every 30 minutes, and she goes back inside every 10 minutes to warm back up,’ he replied, all caught on his own bodycam.

Then another passerby, an older man, arrived and asked, ‘I just wanted to know why she had to stand out here like this?’

‘Do you want the short version or the long version?’ Scott told him.

‘Probably the short version is probably best,’ the man replied.

‘Well sir, aside from me cruelly beating her physically, I’ve not done any other punishment that has worked for her,’ Scott explained.

‘She’s threatened to kill my family, she wants to embarrass us, she wants to urinate on herself and destroy things in the house. 

‘I have a DCS caseworker involved, she’s been in therapy for three years, she also has the wrap around program at school. 

‘She goes in every 30 minutes to warm back up, she’s bundled up very warm and then she’ll come back out.’

Kylie told Indiana State Police investigators her daughter had mental disorders, and broke her toys and urinated on herself to get attention.

She also claimed the girl threatened to cut and shoot her brother. 

Like her husband, she claimed other forms of punishment failed to change her behavior, according to a probable cause affidavit.

The sign that led to her parents’ arrest stemmed from when the girl was told she could put on lip gloss for church, but forgot about it and pouted about it at Sunday school to get attention, as she often did.

Kylie said her daughter had urinated on herself about five times, but Cody claimed it was more like 50.

The girl told investigators she was told to stay in her room when she was grounded for other behavior, and was told she had to wait to go to the bathroom.

Police wrote in the affidavit that the girl being forced to wait was the cause of her wetting herself.

The affidavit alleged that it appeared her parents had coached her on what to say during her interview by going over potential questions and answers.

‘The affiant finds this form of discipline to be disproportionate to the offense and unnecessarily degrading,’ police writing the document wrote, recommending criminal charges.

Rebecca Gibbs, who saw the girl and called 911, said she was sickened to see someone could force a child to hold the sign in the cold.

‘That that’s a police officer who did that to a child, that’s even worse. It was horrible. I wouldn’t let my dog sit outside for an hour, let alone my child,’ she told Fox 59.

Both parents were charged with two counts of neglect of a dependent, a level six felony, and pleaded not guilty. 

They face court again on May 8 ahead of a trial on September 22.

Cody was put on paid administrative leave since his arrest, and Logansport Board of Public Works and Safety Committee later unanimously voted to stop paying him.