FRANKLIN COUNTY, Pa. — A Washington Township man is in Franklin County Prison after he allegedly struck his two children with a wooden tennis racket.
The wife of 38-year-old Daniel Hartman told police that their children were playing outside while Hartman was looking for the tennis racket to kill bees, the criminal complaint says. She advised that Hartman got upset with the children because they lost it earlier in the week.
Hartman then became more upset when he told the children to find it and they came back empty handed.
According to the criminal complaint, Hartman said to the children that he would spank them with the racket if he found it first.
Hartman’s wife intervened when he found the racket, telling him that he was overreacting and he would not spank the children. The next thing she heard was the children screaming and calling to her, stating “Daddy is hitting us,” the criminal complaint says.
The woman said that she went outside and found the children crying. She told police that one child had a red welt-type mark on his left rear thigh while the other child had a red welt on her left forearm and redness on the left wrist area, according to the criminal complaint.
The children told authorities that that they were afraid of Hartman.
Hartman faces two misdemeanor counts of simple assault and endangering the welfare of children, as well as two summary offenses of harassment, court documents show.
