Mother demands justice for daughter, 13, struck with baseball bat in Dayton

UPDATE 6:01 p.m. (July 30): The Dayton Police Department issued the following statement abut the case accusing Latasha McClesky of hitting a 13-year-old girl with a baseball bat:

“The case was presented to both the county prosecutor’s office as well as the city prosecutor’s office, however neither approved charges,” department officials said in the statement relayed by Cara Zinski-Neace, a department spokeswoman.

Dayton detectives will continue to look for evidence to potentially pursue charges in the future, department officials said in the statement.

INITIAL REPORT (July 27)

A Cincinnati woman saw a startling video posted on Facebook that showed a woman attacking a teen girl who she immediately recognized as her daughter.

RELATED: WATCH: Baseball bat attack of teen girl caught on camera

“I was lost for words for an adult to even strike a child like that with a baseball bat ... it was just outrageous,” said Bonnie Knight in Dayton on Friday evening. “She was continuously striking, continuously striking.”

The woman shown on tape, identified by Dayton police as Latasha McCleskey, 33, of Dayton, was arrested but has since been released from the Montgomery County Jail. McCleskey on Friday evening said she didn’t want to comment about the incident.

RELATED: Police: Woman strikes 13-year-old girl with baseball bat in Dayton

The teen’s family say they want justice.

“I will not stop until she is in jail,” Knight said.

Her daughter, 13-year-old Keila (Key EYE la) Harvey, was walking from the park back to the group home where she’s staying on Otterbein Avenue when she got into a fight with another girl her age who lives nearby. That’s when the other girl’s mother came out with a metal baseball bat while a neighbor recorded the incident.

Knight said she was told no one will prosecute the case because McCleskey was protecting her own daughter, and that she is astounded by this.

“She’s way bigger than my child and she’s an adult ... clearly it was two kids fighting and the adult thing to do would have been to break up the fight ... instead of using a weapon on the 13-year-old and struck her in the head with it.”

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Knight said she has hired an attorney and has reached out to the mayors of Dayton and Cincinnati and is urging prosecutors to file charges in the case.

“At the end of the day, you don’t pick up a bat for a child.”

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