Nikki Dickinson, Ohio Mom, Arrested After Letting 10-Year-Old Son Get A Tattoo

An Ohio mother is in trouble for letting her 10-year-old son get a tattoo by a 16-year-old tattoo artist, Yahoo News is reporting.

Nikki Dickinson, 34, has been arrested and is facing a variety of criminal charges for the September 24 incident in which a teenage tattoo artist was caught on video allegedly applying the ink to the preadolescent. The incident might never have come to the attention of the police but for the fact that video of the kid allegedly getting the tat was posted on social media. Once that happened, the Bellefontaine Police Department started getting flooded with outraged phone calls.

The video was recorded on September 24.

You can watch the video below, but be warned: it contains content that may be disturbing to some viewers.

https://www.facebook.com/WSYXABC6/videos/1105059942984956/

When a local news reporter spoke to Dickinson about the video, she purportedly said it was “fake.” However, last week, when police showed up at the family’s home, the boy allegedly said that the tattoo was real. Further, Dickinson allegedly told officers that the boy had been incessant in his begging for ink and that she finally gave in.

It’s not clear, as of this writing, what kind of tattoo the boy allegedly got.

As it turns out, the problem in this incident isn’t specifically that a preteen child got tattooed – that is actually perfectly legal in Ohio. The law states that someone under the age of 18 can indeed get a tattoo (or an ear or body piercing) with the consent of a parent or guardian and with the parent or guardian present.

However, the law goes on to further state that the tattoo must be done at the tattoo/piercing business, that the parent must sign various consent forms, that the parent must be properly informed of aftercare, and so on.

And in this particular case, allegedly some of those conditions were not met.

Specifically, as several Facebook commenters pointed out, it looked as if the tattoo artist was working without gloves, which is unsanitary for the artist and the customer. Another internet commenter pointed out that it appeared that a syringe was nearby.

Further, according to the Bellefontaine Examiner, the 16-year-old tattoo artist has been in trouble with regulators before. He allegedly gave a customer a tattoo and failed to follow proper sanitation protocols, and the customer wound up getting a potentially deadly MRSA infection.

Dickinson has been charged with first-degree misdemeanor child endangerment and contributing to the delinquency of a minor.