ROCKPORT, Texas (AP) — Police launched an investigation Wednesday into an online video post that claims to show a Texas family law judge profanely berating and repeatedly lashing his 16-year-old daughter with a belt.

The nearly 8-minute video, which has been viewed more than 600,000 times on YouTube since being uploaded last week, shows a man violently whipping a girl in the legs more than dozen times and growing increasingly irate, while she screams and refuses to turn over on a bed to be beaten.

"Lay down or I'll spank you in your (expletive) face," the man screams. The girl wails and pleads for him to stop.

The person who uploaded the video on YouTube signs the post as Hillary Adams, the daughter of Aransas County Court-at-Law Judge William Adams and the target of the beating. The post says the video was filmed in 2004.