A Daytona Beach man was charged with child abuse this week, accused of pepper spraying two boys, ages 10 and 8, in the face.
News 13 spoke with the mother of one of those boys, and she tells us the two were in pain for hours.
58-year-old Wilbert Vreen is in the Volusia County Branch Jail, he's accused of pepper spraying the two boys.
"Thier eyes were just red and their face was red. and they kept crying cause it was burning that bad," said Jamila Holmes, mother of the 8-year-old boy, and the godmother of the 10 year old.
Per News 13 crime guidelines, we are not showing the children's faces.
Vernon McDaniel lives in the same complex on Country Club Oval, and says he witnessed the entire incident.
He says all three were near these trash cans when Vreen started yelling at the boys for no apparent reason.
"When he said mother, your mother ain't no good, then the kids got mad. And then he pulled out the mace and sprayed them ... and now they're crying, their crying, mace is all over their eyes, they're crying," said McDaniel.
The boys were treated by Daytona Beach firefighters at the scene but were not taken to the hospital.
Holmes says the boys were feeling the effects of the pepper spray well into the night.
Police arrived and questioned Vreen.
"The suspect denied that he pepper sprayed them. He did have pepper spray. We were able to retrieve pepper spray from his back-pack," said Sgt. Jimmie Flynt of the Daytona Police Department.
Even though Vreen denied pepper spraying the children, he was booked and charged with two counts of child abuse and taken to the Volusia County Branch jail.
Thursday afternoon, a judge ordered Vreen be held on $10,000 bond.
"What do you think needs to happen to this man? He needs to stay in jail, where he can't do this to nobody, not a child, not an adult," said Holmes.