A Lafayette woman has been booked with Cruelty to a juvenile, accused of slamming a two-year-old to the ground because he didn't want to take a nap.
Clemonia Onezime, 22, was booked on Tuesday, records show.
UPDATE: Day care officials say Onezime and another teacher who may have seen some of what was happening have both been fired.
Nathaniel Moore, president and CEO of Little Blessings Childcare, said a parent told his staff about something her son had told her happened at the day care. Their normal process is to launch an internal investigation, which they did, he said.
They checked the cameras they have in all classrooms, and once they saw what happened they called licensing authorites, DCFS and police, he said.
"We take pride in protecting these children, that's our oath, but it's everyone's responsibility, individually. And she broke that," Moore said.
Moore said he was glad that the family trust them enough to bring the child's story to them.
Onezime was fired immediately, he said. As they looked at the tapes, they saw that another teacher was in and out of the classroom, and had to have seen some of the things that happened, he said. She was fired as well.
It was that teacher's responsibility to protect the child, report the incident to her supervisors and to DCFS, and she didn't do that, he said. In the wake of this incident, Moore said they plan to intensify their monitoring of the cameras they have in their facilities.
Lafayette Police say she's accused of an incident that happened in April. She was employed at a local daycare, and was caught on video picking up the child, who was in her car, and slamming him to the ground. She was seen placing the same child on a mat and holding him down by placing her thigh on his back, police allege. Police also allege that her body weight was used to restrict the child from moving.
