Growing up in Southeastern Wisconsin, I always thought of Sheboygan as being a nice, quiet, culturally (if not politically) conservative community.  Given all the bizarre criminal matters coming out of Sheboygan lately, it seems like I might have been wrong about Sheboygan all along.  Alternatively, perhaps officials in Arkansas closed down some trailer park for being a public nuisance - and all the denizens relocated to Sheboygan to keep the party going.

     The latest case in point?  Meet 28 year old Angelique Vandeberg (pictured above).

     Authorities claim that Vandeberg intentionally shot her 8 year old daughter in the leg with a BB gun last weekend.  "Why in the world would she do this", you ask?  Good question!

     According to the criminal complaint, Vandeberg shot her daughter in the leg in order to win a bet with her boyfriend.  The stakes?  $1.

     That's right.! Vandeberg allegedly shot her daughter in the leg in order to win a $1 bet with her boyfriend ( a real winner himself, no doubt).  The icing on the cake is that the BB supposedly bounced off the 8 year old and stuck her 7 year old brother (who was not injured).  In what should come as a surprise to no one, officials say that large quantities of alcohol were involved.

     Believe it or not, the greatest outrage about this case may not that this "mom of the year" drunkenly shot her daughter to win a bet.  Rather, Sheboygan County social workers had apparently been involved with this family for several months but had not removed the children from the home.  As a matter of fact, it's unclear from published reports whether or not Vandeberg - who is currently free on a signature bond - presently continues to have custody of the kids and/or will continue to have custody in the future.

     According to a supervisor with Child Protective Services in Sheboygan, officials try to keep families together - even in cases of child abuse!  Isn't that special.

     I can't help but contrast this matter to the case of Christopher Ratte that we talked about on my radio program earlier this week.

     Ratte is a 47 year old professor at the University of Michigan who took his 7 year old son to a Detroit Tigers baseball game earlier this month.  Between innings, Ratte went to a concession stand and ordered a beer for himself and a lemonade (intended for his son).  The vendor gave Ratte a Mike's Hard Lemonade (5% alcohol).

     Ratte had never heard of Mike's Hard Lemonade and didn't realize it was an alcoholic drink.  He therefore gave the bottle to his son who proceeded to sit in the stands and sip it.  A security guard saw the boy drinking, grabbed the bottle and called authorities.  Despite the fact that almost everyone involved recognized this to be an honest mistake, the child was taken from his parents and placed in the custody of protective services for several days. 

     What are the odds that Angelique Vandeberg's file contains more troubling conduct than Ratte's?

     If convicted of all offenses, Vandeberg faces up to three years in prison.  Given the track record of the Sheboygan County District Attorney, my guess is that the case will be plea bargained down.  Whatever happens to Vandeberg however strikes me as being secondary to the question of what will happen to the kids?

     In the meantime, Sheboygan's criminal rodeo rolls on.