US soldier waterboards his child for not reciting alphabet

Joshua Tabor, 27, of Yelm, Wash., allegedly beat the child before submerging his daughter's head into the water three to four times in the family's kitchen sink, according to reports.

Soldier 'waterboards' daughter
Citing court records, the News Tribune reports that Tabor told a Yelm police officer that he and his girlfriend "held her down on the counter and submerged her head into the water three or four times until the water came around her forehead and jawline."

The suspect said he punished his daughter for "refusing to say her letters."

Police arrested Army Sgt. Tabor on Jan. 31 and charged him with assaulting a child after they responded to a call of a disturbance about 2 a.m. The officers later found the little girl hiding in a locked bathroom, with several bruises and scratch marks on her back and shoulder, according to Police Chief Todd Stancil.

"We had a report of [Tabor] walking around his neighborhood holding a Kevlar helmet and threatening to bust out windows," Stancil told ABCNews.com today. "In the process of talking to Tabor's girlfriend about what was going on, we learned that he had also been abusing his daughter."

Although the bizarre incident occurred more than a week ago, details of the case were not widely known publicly until Monday.

Nothing wrong with torture technique of waterboarding
Tabor, a soldier at the Lewis-McChord base in Tacoma, Wash., reportedly told police that his daughter was deathly afraid of water and was “squirming around trying to get away from the water."

According to Tabor, he didn't feel there was anything wrong with this form of punishment, the police report says.

"Joshua did not act as though he felt there was anything wrong with this form of punishment," the police report said. “To him (the father), that was an acceptable form of punishment - because she (the girl) wasn't able to say the alphabet."

Waterboarding is a controversial torture technique used to interrogate "war on terror" suspects and now banned as torture. In the technique water is poured over the suspects so they think they are drowning.

Daddy’s alleged torture
CNN reports that, according to the police report, the girl told police: "I don't know why he did it ... Daddy used his hands."

She also told police that Tabor "put me in the water," so she "would say my letters," the police report said. "It was hot, the water was hot. I told him I would say my letters then! My heart shirt got wet."

The soldier has been charged with second-degree assault of a child and is set to appear in court Feb. 16. His girlfriend, who is not identified in the police reports, could also be charged in the crime, said Stancil.

"We originally booked him on third-degree assault, but if he did put the water over her face, that would constitute a more tortuous type of crime," New York Daily News quoted Stancil as saing. "We are looking into those allegations."

Tabor is out on $10,000 bail and restricted to the Joint Base Lewis-McChord base.