Schoenbrod told the caseworker he has used the put-a-child-in-jail technique before. Approximately nine years earlier, he said he disciplined his 4-year-old son similarly after misbehaving at preschool. Schoenbrod said he had asked the boy whether he had hit a girl and the boy said yes. So Schoenbrod then told the boy he puts people in jail when they hit other people.

"I took him to the jail and he sat there. And I watched him ... and he was crying and everything, and to this day, if you mention, like, that incident, he’s just like, ‘I would never do that again.’ It was effective," Schoenbrod said. "So that’s why I did it with this. He didn’t hit anybody, but I figured the same thing, discipline. And he didn’t want to go back, so ...” Later, on the hourlong body-cam footage, most of which contained scrambled video, Long could be heard calling the investigation "insane," while Schoenbrod responded: “It’s just disgusting that somebody would drag our family through the mud like this.”