Whoa, just found this one. I'm in the Northeast, and no one ever mentioned she was a traveler on the news here, nor on CNN if I recall. While the Police may have "profiled" her and kept a close eye on her because she is a Traveler (if we are to believe Stilly River Stage about how it works in Texas) in the end she did the crime. It's like a thief complaining that the cops only caught him red-handed because they were looking at him due to his ethnicity. I feel sympathy for the honest members of the ethnicity who are unfairly scrutinized, but less bad for the criminals who get caught because of the scrutiny.

On the flip side of this issue, though, I think the crucial point is that you could not see her hands in the video. In other words, we don't know if she was slapping, punching or shaking the child. That's why the question of "marks" was crucial. The seriousness of her offense was at stake.

As it is, I don't think there is enough evidence for a child to be separated from her mother. Legally, Big Mick, you can't just say "this type of behaviour is not a one-time thing," you have to show that THIS woman has a pattern of abusing her child, and we simply have no evidence. Given that we don't know if she was slapping, punching or simply shaking, we'd be saying "any parent who ever slaps or shakes her child should have that child taken away." Under this rule, I would have been a foster child and probably had a much worse life than I've had. Thus, I can't support anything more serious than probation and an anger management class.