PORTLAND, Texas – Police launched an investigation Wednesday into a Texas family law judge whose daughter posted a YouTube video of him savagely beating her with a belt during a tirade several years ago when she was a teenager.

The nearly 8-minute video, which had been viewed more than 600,000 times since it was uploaded last week, shows Aransas County Court-at-Law Judge William Adams lashing his then-16-year-old daughter on the legs more than a dozen times and growing increasingly irate while she screams and refuses to turn over on a bed to be beaten.

“Lay down or I’ll spank you in your (expletive) face,” Adams screams. His daughter, Hillary, wails and pleads for him to stop.

Tim Jayroe, the police chief in Adams’ hometown of Rockport, said Wednesday that he’s asked the Texas Rangers to assist in investigating whether the video shows anything criminal. He said his department began investigating after receiving phone calls from several concerned people who watched the secretly recorded 2004 video.

No one answered the door at Adams’ home on Wednesday, and repeated calls to his office rang unanswered. However, the 51-year-old judge told a Corpus Christi TV station Wednesday that the video “looks worse than it is” and that he doesn’t expect to be disciplined or punished because of it.

“In my mind, I haven’t done anything wrong other than discipline my child after she was caught stealing,” Adams said. “And I did lose my temper, but I’ve since apologized.”