A young Ohio mother was recently arrested for allowing her 10-year-old son to get a permanent tattoo in unsanitary conditions, from a 16-year-old unlicensed artist. She later claimed she got simply got tired of her son asking for a tattoo.
34-year-old Nikki Dickinson was arrested last week in Bellefontaine, Ohio, after a disturbing video showing her young son getting a tattoo on his arm went viral on social media. Dickinson doesn’t appear in the video simply because she is the one recording the footage, but she admitted to police that she gave her parental consent for the tattooing, because her son had been pleading with her to get a tattoo of the first initial of his name. It’s unclear whether she knew that the 16-year-unlicensed tattoo artist had a history of malpractice and once gave a client MRSA (a Stafilococus aureus strain) from a dirty needle.
Photo: Facebook
The craziest thing about this story is that Dickinson wasn’t charged with allowing her child to get a tattoo, as that apparently isn’t illegal in the state of Ohio, if the parents give their consent. Her crime was allowing the tattooing to be done in unsanitary conditions (her own home) by an unlicensed, teenage tattoo artist. Her filming the whole thing didn’t help much either…
The mother, who cried as she had her booking photograph taken on Friday, was charged with endangering of a child and contributing to the delinquency of a child. If found guilty, she faces up to six months behind bars. The tattoo artist was also charged with not following safety and sanitary guidelines as well as two delinquency counts of tattooing prohibitions. The woman who holds the 10-year-old and tried to keep him distracted while he is getting the tattoo has not been charged yet.
It’s unclear why the accused didn’t opt for a henna or another type of temporary tattoo for her son, or why she uploaded the incriminating video she shot, on social media. One thing is for sure, her chances of receiving the “mother of the year ward” are virtually nonexistent at this point.
