Iraq Vet Accused of Waterboarding 4-Year-Old Daughter

(Feb. 9) -- Seattle police have arrested a U.S. Army sergeant and charged him with assaulting his 4-year-old daughter by holding the girl in hot water in an attempt to get her to recite the ABCs.

After receiving a call that 27-year-old Joshua Tabor was drunk and wandering his neighborhood at 2 a.m., police arrived at the man's home in Yelm, Wash., CNN reports. They found Tabor in an agitated state.

"He was threatening to break windows with his Kevlar helmet," Todd Stancil, Yelm's chief of police told CNN.

Police said when they interviewed Tabor's girlfriend and his young daughter from another marriage, they learned that Tabor had held the girl in a sink full of water because he was angry when she couldn't recite the alphabet.

"It was hot, the water was hot," the girl told police. "I told him I would say my letters then!"

According to police, the girl had severe bruising and scratch marks on her body, and Tabor admitted to holding his daughter in the sink, precisely because she was afraid of water, CNN reported. In the police report, Tabor acknowledged that he had put the girl's head in the sink "three to four times."

"She said the letters after that," Tabor is quoted as saying in the report.

After returning from a 15-month tour in Iraq last year, Tabor has been stationed at Joint Base Lewis-McChord, CNN said. An investigation into the incident is ongoing.