Merchant spanks boy for teaching parrot profanity

(WCNC-TV)

A flap over a cursing parrot is giving new meaning to flipping the bird as a store owner is accused of spanking a boy he claims was teaching his pet profanity.

William Soper, 64, of Statesville, N.C., faces a misdemeanor charge of assault after whacking a 9-year-old child who was not his son.

“God, I’d get child abuse at home, but he can get away with that?” the boy’s mother, Sheree Bustle, told the Charlotte Observer. “If you’ve got a problem with a kid abusing a bird, he could’ve handled it differently.”

Bustle was not inside the Clock World store at the time of the incident when her two sons talked to Sparky the parrot, perched in an outdoor cage belonging to the shop owner.

Soper says he was fixing clocks when he heard squawking and repeated shouts of an expletive.

‘F’ is for fowl language (WXII-TV)

“I said its name 30 million times, and it said it back, and it said hello and all this stuff, and then it automatically said the F-word,” Chris Bustle, 12, told the Observer, admitting he did egg the bird on.

That’s when Soper, who claims Sparky had never previously uttered any fowl language, grabbed 9-year-old Matthew by the shirt, smacked his bottom and told the boys to leave if they couldn’t behave.

“My feet were just kicking, trying to get away,” Matthew told the paper, saying he was scared but not hurt.

“I think I can protect my property against vandalism, as long as I don’t use a gun,” Soper said. “A pop on the bottom is non-lethal.”

He says the boys were spitting on Sparky, and adds protecting his $13,000 pet justifies the spanking.

“I think if they’re old enough to be roaming the streets by themselves, they’re old enough to be punished,” he told the Observer.

Soper faces a court hearing Monday, with the possibility of a fine and up to 60 days in the county cage.

Though he hasn’t heard a repeat of the obscene language from Sparky, he’s not sure about the future since parrots don’t erase often-heard words.

“It’s worse than graffiti,” he said. “You can’t wash it out.”