Advertisement Port St. Lucie woman arrested for taking teen daughter to park to fight girl Video shows mom egging on fight, police say Share Shares Copy Link Copy

A fight that began through text messages turned violent after a Port St. Lucie woman took her teenage daughter to a local park to fight a schoolmate, Port St. Lucie police said.Heather Salerno, 52, was arrested Wednesday on charges of child abuse, contributing to the delinquency of a minor and disorderly conduct after she took her 15-year-old daughter to Sportsman’s Park to fight a 16-year-old girl, police said. The fight happened April 1 at Sportsman's Park at 201 NW Prima Vista Boulevard. Port St. Lucie police said tension between the two girls arose when unwanted texts were sent from the teenager to Salerno’s daughter's cellphone around March 30. After learning of the dispute from Salerno, officers intervened by leaving a message for the teenager and her parents to stop texting Salerno’s daughter. The officer asked the family to return the call, but no one did.An officer followed up with Salerno March 31 and April 1 at her job at a gas station, and she told investigators that the girl had stopped sending her daughter text messages.A third follow-up call was made on April 2, and Salerno told deputies, that she “took care of the problem” because the police intervention failed to stop the harassment of her daughter.Salerno said her daughter learned during school hours, on April 2, the teenager called her a derogatory term in a video and shared it with classmates, the police report said.Salerno said the teenager told her daughter to meet her at the park.Salerno confessed to taking her daughter to the park to fight and showed deputies a 35-second footage video of the altercation, police said.Salerno said she didn’t record the fight but someone else did and sent it to her. Police said there were several calls for help from witnesses to the April 1 fight.Salerno told officers that “this was the only way to solve the problem” and that she had discussed it with her daughter’s teacher, who didn’t help, according to police.In the clip, Salerno is seen encouraging the brawl between the two girls. “Get her, get her (expletive) get up and beat her (expletive),” Salerno said. Another video viewed by investigators show Salerno pushing the teenager with both hands while she was on top of her daughter during the fight. It’s not known if either girl was injured.