By ROBIN SHANNON

L’Observateur

LAPLACE – St. John Parish authorities arrested a LaPlace woman late last week after she allegedly beat her three children with a broom handle and sent them outside wearing only T-shirts and underwear, according to a release from the Sheriff’s Office.

Raven Shorts, 25, of 177 Joe Parquet Circle, was booked with three counts of cruelty to juveniles and three counts of child desertion, in connection with the Jan. 15 incident, said St. John Sheriff’s Office spokesman Dane Clement.

According to the release, an employee with the St. John Parish Housing Authority called police after the three children, ages 7, 5 and 4, showed up at the LaPlace Oaks Housing Complex office around 11 a.m. wearing very little clothing and no shoes.

According to Clement the boys had “bloody lacerations all about their bodies.”

The 7-year-old told deputies he and his brothers were playing in the bathroom when the toilet became stopped up. He said his mother, Shorts, got angry and began striking them with the broom handle.

Clement said the boys were struck in the head, neck, arms, legs and back. The mother then told all three boys “to leave and never come home,” the report said.

The children were transported, treated and released from River Parishes Hospital in LaPlace, Clement said. They are now in the custody of their father.

Shorts was arrested at her residence in the housing complex.

She is being held at the Sherman Walker Correctional Center in LaPlace in lieu of a $105,000 bond.