MEMPHIS, TN -
MEMPHIS, TN - (WMC-TV) – Police say a Hickory Hill town-home was a house of horror for four children when they were beaten with a brick by their mother.
"I don't know how people can do that to kids," said neighbor Sharon Woods. "It's really bad."
Woods lives around the corner from where 27-year-old Alisha Hike was arrested and charged with multiple counts of abuse.
"I've whooped them," said Woods of her own children. "But there's a limit to whooping children."
Police were called to Hike's home Sunday by the father of her children. A friend of his told Action News 5 the attack followed a dispute between the parents.
"He just got tired of it and started straying away from her and she just started flipping out," said Decarlo Pitchford. "She went off on the kids and took it out on the kids."
In addition to a brick, police say Hike used a wooden stick to beat her children. All four kids, ages 3 to 12, were taken to LeBonheur Children's Hospital. Two of them required stitches in their heads. Doctors found bruises and knots on all of their bodies and possible fractures to one of their hands.
Neighbor and father Jeremy Powell could not imagine putting his child through what police say the ones in Hike's house endured.
"It's out of the question," said Powell. "I could never raise my hand to my daughter."
Neighbors hope Hike's children find better lives while she gets the help she needs.
"Someone who will love them and cherish them and treat them right," said Sharon Woods. "Because they don't ask to come into this world. So why you mistreat them?"
Hike is being held on a $150,000 bond. DCS is investigating the abuse and removed six children in all from the Hike home.
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