A Phoenix mom choked her 5-year-old son for playing video games and threatened him and her teenage daughter with a butcher knife on Christmas Day, police say.
Jutrina Tillman, 32, who was arrested after police showed up and interviewed the terrified children, is already under investigation by Child Protective Services on suspicion of abusing her 13-year-old daughter.
Records state that the family fight began about 9 p.m. after Tillman, who'd been drinking all day, became enraged at the boy for playing a video game he'd received as a present. She slammed the game to the floor and dragged the kid to a bedroom.
The woman's young son later told one officer "that his mom put her hand around his throat and squeezed until he thought he was going to fall asleep and closed his eyes," court records say.
Tillman's distraught daughter burst into the bedroom and shoved her. That's when Tillman went to the kitchen and grabbed a six-to-eight-inch knife. She pointed the tip of the knife at the teen's chest and took her cell phone away, records say, screaming that she would kill the girl.
Tillman then turned her attention back to the boy and ran at him with
the knife held high, "screaming she was going to fucking kill him,"
records state.
The kid managed to run out the front door, but Tillman grabbed the boy
around the neck, held the knife to his chest and dragged him back
inside. The girl called 911.
"The 5-year-old told me he was really scared and thought his mom was
going to hurt them really badly," the officer wrote in court paperwork.
The kid also reportedly told police his mom had ordered him to lie to
police or she'd hurt him.
Ah, Christmas memories.
When cops arrived at the home near 43rd and Southern avenues, Tillman tried to hide at a neighbor's house, but the
neighbor wouldn't let her in. She denied everything, saying her kids
were lying.
Police arrested her on suspicion of making threats, aggravated assault and child abuse.
