Mom jailed after kicking 4-year-old son in the face on camera

MESA, Ariz. — A 26-year-old Mesa woman was booked into jail after police said she was caught on a store surveillance camera kicking her 4-year-old son in the face.

The video showed Breeanna Lee Willis as she walked into a 7-Eleven store at 411 S. Gilbert Road with her three children. The boy fell and she turned and kicked him in the face, sending the boy into an ice chest behind him, Mesa police said in a probable cause statement filed with the court.

A witness who saw the bleeding child after the incident called police and provided a description of the boy with a bloodied face, police said.

The store clerk, who said she didn’t see the kick but did see a commotion afterward, provided the video of the incident.

The first witness followed Willis and her children for a few blocks until they arrived on foot to a parking lot, where police said they found the bloodied boy and questioned his mother.

Willis said the boy was throwing a fit over a bag of chips and that she might have kneed him, was stern with him but that she did not kick him, police said.

She said she made a mistake and wished she could take the incident back, police said.

Willis also told police she has been the subject of eight prior Child Protective Services investigations.

She was booked into jail on one felony count of child abuse.