An Arizona mother who ran over a 12-year-old girl with her pickup truck after a fight in a park was sentenced to ten years in prison on Friday, according to prosecutors.
Brandie Gotch, 31, pleaded guilty to three counts of aggravated assault, according to a press release from the Maricopa County Attorney’s Office. In February 2024, Gotch’s children were fighting at Westgreen Park in Peoria, a Phoenix suburb, while other children cheered them on and recorded the incident.
Prosecutors claim that Gotch arrived at the park to pick up her children and was walking them back to her truck when a 14-year-old boy called her a name. Gotch approached the boy, grabbed his hair, and began “pulling his head back and forth and side to side, while yelling at him,” according to police.
When a second boy called her a “b—,” she allegedly went to her white Chevy Silverado, grabbed what appeared to be a sharp stick, and chased the boy with it, yelling, “I am going to kill you and run you over.”
Gotch gathered her four children in the pickup truck. The second boy stood behind her truck “dancing and mocking her” before moving on to stand beside his sister. At this point, Gotch revved the engine and drove directly at the boy and his sister. The boy managed to jump out of the way, but Gotch ran over the 12-year-old girl’s leg, according to prosecutors.
The angry mother drove through the park, where there were more than a dozen children. Prosecutors say some of them had to leap out of the truck’s path.
Gotch drove home and was later arrested.
In an interview with detectives, Gotch admitted to driving into the park, “around the bathrooms” and “through the park field” before driving away. When asked if she ran over any of the children, she said she didn’t believe she did and added, “I hope not.”
According to the affidavit, Gotch informed police that the children from the park had been bullying her children at school. She stated that she reported the children to school officials and the police, but that “nothing has been done.” She also believed that the bullying was continuing at the park.
Though Gotch assured authorities that she made sure all of her children were wearing seat belts when she drove through the park, the claim was refuted by the children, who told police they were not restrained and were “bouncing all over the vehicle” at the time.
“This could have been a much more tragic situation; thankfully, the worst injury was a sprained ankle and some bad scrapes and bruises,” Maricopa County Attorney Rachel Mitchell stated. “Even when they are angry or frustrated, adults must behave appropriately. It is never acceptable to take out our rage on a child.”
