SOUL-CRUSHING

University Scientists Thought It Was ‘Normal’ to Leave Their Kids in Cages: Cops

Their 6-year-old son said he would sometimes be kept in the cage from the time he got home from school until he left to go back to school the next morning.

Two biological scientists at the University of Florida are accused of locking their young children up in makeshift cages while they worked.

Shockingly, the couple showed police officers the special cages at their home “as if it were all normal,” according to police in Gainesville.

The pair, aged 31 and 35, wound up on the radar of the Department of Children and Families after their 6-year-old son told a school staffer he didn’t want to go home because he would be put in a cage there. Police officers then visited the family’s home and discovered a “large unsanded, wooden enclosure made of pressure-treated 2x4’s, that appeared to be a makeshift cage” in the boy’s room, police said in an arrest report.

The boy said he would sometimes be kept in the cage from the time he got home from school until he left to go back to school the next morning. His parents made him wear “pull-ups” overnight while he was in the cage, he said.

His 2-year-old sibling was also kept in a cage, though in this case it was an overturned crib on top of a mattress, authorities said.

Both parents were arrested and charged with aggravated child abuse and child neglect. The Daily Beast is not naming the pair to protect the identities of the children. The couple has been placed on administrative leave from the University of Florida, where they both had been working for several years.

The 6-year-old reportedly expressed concern for his parents as he and his sibling were removed from the home, telling officers, “I didn’t want anyone to get in trouble. I just didn’t want to be in the cage.”

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Allison QuinnNews Editor

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