Fox News contributor Erick Erickson wrote that a Dollar General employee deserves “a medal” for reportedly responding to an eight-year-old child who threw a cookie at her by hitting the child with her belt dozens of times.

On February 4 Erickson tweeted:

The link in Erickson's tweet goes to an article on the website of Atlanta, GA's NBC affiliate, which states that the employee Erickson believes deserves a medal is being charged with aggravated assault after hitting a shopper's child with a belt “at least 25 times” after the child threw a cookie at her (emphasis added):

A Dollar General employee arrested in Wrightsville last week for hitting a child with a belt has now been charged with aggravated assault. The charges were upgraded from simple battery because store video showed the woman hitting the 8 year old at least 25 times. [...] Wrightsville Police Chief Paul Sterling said Logan Ivey was running around in the store and got into a confrontation with 39-year-old store clerk Emilia Graciela Bell. Bell told investigators the boy threw a cookie at her and that's when she removed her belt, chased the boy down and spanked him behind the counter. “It felt real real painful; nobody should have that kind of torture to them,” Logan said. “It really hurts.”

Erickson has a long history of using his Twitter feed to engage in inflammatory commentary. In September he apologized after facing widespread criticism for tweeting of the first night of the Democratic National Convention, “First night of the Vagina Monologues in Charlotte going as expected.” Last week he announced that he was leaving CNN for Fox News.