Update (6/3/15): Girl Who Was Beaten and Abused by Cop for 12 Years Breaks Her Silence
BERTHOUD, CO — A girl who was seen being beaten by a police officer on a hidden video has broken her silence.
Officer Jeremy Yachik was seen in the video beating the girl after she tried to eat carrots.
She was not allowed to take them from the refrigerator, but she did anyway because she needed something to eat.
The girl was his own daughter. She had been living in an abusive environment for years.
Imagine how bad it must have been, considering this beating occurred merely because she tried to eat some vegetables.
“He got mad at me for eating carrots. Like the video, that’s what the video is over. Me getting hit and punched over carrots. Like, what kind of person does that?” Savannah Yachik told Fox31 Denver in an interview.
At one point the video shows Officer Yachik kicking his little daughter in what appears to be her ribcage.
These beatings would occur routinely, along with emotional and psychological and verbal abuse.
They continued to happen over the course of 12 years, according to reports.
“He had threatened to kill me on more than one occasion,” Savannah said.
“I would go to school with black eyes. But I would have to tell my teachers, ‘Oh, I was playing with my little brother and he hit me in the eye.'”
When the video surfaced online, citizens were outraged, but Officer Yachik never actually went to jail.
Because of his blue-privilege, he was only given “supervised probation” for a three years.
On one occasion, Officer Yachik actually put his hands around little Savannah’s neck and began strangling her. She describes it as one of the worst ways in which her father and now-former police officer abused her.
Since escaping the abusive environment, Savanahh has begun healing.
She now intends to work on behalf of child abuse victims.
She hasn’t spoken to Yachik, her father, in over a year.
As for him, he is still out on the streets in Colorado working for a new employer.
The beatings and torture of the girl included: handcuffing her and slamming her head into walls; shackling her in a dark room for hours and starving her; burning her digestive system; whipping her with ropes; strangling her until she blacked out.
The video below was taken on the day that Officer Yachik punched and kicked the girl for eating carrots. Officer Yachik’s fiance stated that both herself and the girl were beaten for several years.
When Officer Yachik’s fiance sent footage of the abuse to the chief of police (Yachik’s boss), she received no response back from the chief.
But Yachik called her soon thereafter and said “Nice try…trying to get me fired…it’s not going to work,” according to the affidavit.
The fiance continued sending the footage to local media outlets. Yachik was eventually taken into custody by other cops — he was released after paying $1,500 bail.
Related: domestic violence is two to four times more common in police families than in families in the entire general population.
Here is footage of the officer beating the child (warning: disturbing content)
Watch the interview with Savannah now that she has escaped: