A GI waterboarded his 4-year-old daughter in their suburban Tacoma, Wash., home because she couldn't recite the alphabet, police reported.
Joshua Tabor, 27, allegedly admitted to police he used the torture technique because his daughter was terrified of water and he was furious she didn't know her ABCs.
Tabor was arrested Sunday and charged with assault of a child.
Tabor, a soldier at the Lewis-McChord base in Tacoma, Wash., told police he held the little girl's head backward in a sink of water, Yelm Police Chief Todd Stancil told the the local newspaper, the Nisqually Valley News.
Stancil said Tabor had admitted to using this means of punishment three to four times.
Police found the little girl locked in a bathroom with bruises on her back and scratch marks on her neck and throat.
Asked how she got the bruises, the girl is said to have replied, "Daddy did it."
Police did not release Tabor's rank or the nature of his military service. His base is home to units that have served in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The girl, who was not identified, had been in Tabor's court-ordered custody for about a month and a half.
After his arrest, she was placed in the care of Child Protective services, Stancil said. She had moved to Yelm from Montana where she lived with her grandparents. Her mother lives in Kansas.
Cops arrested Tabor after neighborhood residents reported him walking around his neighborhood drunk, wearing a Kevlar Army helmet and threatening to break windows.
Tabor's girlfriend told police that Tabor has an anger problem and beats his daughter, Stancil said.
Tabor reportedly said his girlfriend helped hold the girl down in the water. She had not been charged.
The couple has a 2-month-old child together, Stancil said.
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