A father in Cleveland, Ohio, wants answers after seeing a video showing a day care employee apparently striking his child in the chest repeatedly. Leslie Ogletree's daughter, also named Leslie, has Down syndrome. On March 16, she was at day care playing with a toy phone while holding her tablet. Unbeknownst to anyone in the room, the tablet was recording video, and what it picked up was disturbing.
Young Leslie appears to be behaving well when an employee walks up and hits her four times. After discovering the video, the girl's father filed a police report against Triple J's Childcare and Learning Center in East Cleveland on Euclid Avenue. Leslie Ogletree doesn't believe his daughter did anything wrong and can't understand why anyone would hurt his child.
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The video is outrageous.
In the video, little Leslie is seen playing with her toy phone when a worker comes up and violently attacks her. After hitting her, she pulls Leslie off the ground and pushes her out of view. The sound is muffled, but it appears she is telling the child to put her shoes on. Her father told 19 News that he doesn't physically discipline his daughter and is appalled at the worker's actions.
"I don't even hit my daughter. What is this lady hitting my daughter like she's a grown-up or something like that for, especially working at a day care," Leslie Ogletree said.
Little Leslie has special needs.
Her father explained that in addition to Down syndrome, Leslie has a heart condition and has undergone surgeries. He said hitting her was totally unacceptable, but he's afraid this latest incident wasn't the first time.
"I'm pretty sure it happened there before," he claimed. He contends his daughter did nothing to deserve that kind of treatment, and when he saw the video, he went directly to the police to file a report against the day care.
If his daughter is innocent, why are they punishing Leslie Ogletree?
The day care fired the employee, but now Leslie Ogletree says they treat him like he did something wrong. On a recent trip to pick up his daughter, the day care denied him entry and said only the mother was authorized to pick up the child because of his report.
"They call it allegations, these ain't no allegations, these are facts, it's a video. My daughter recorded you," he said.
19 News visited the day care on April 19 but didn't go inside. When asked about the incident, an employee said the worker was fired a month ago.
An investigation into the day care showed several violations.
Several sanitation violations occurred in the toddler room during an inspection of Triple J's Childcare and Learning Center in January, according to 19 News. These included having no liquid soap or toilet paper in the bathroom and a strong urine smell in it. Additionally, one child care staff member still needed to complete required health and safety training. A March follow-up report confirmed the facility had since corrected all violations.
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Sadly, child abuse in a day care setting is not uncommon.
It seems that stories are constantly in the news claiming an employee abused a child in a child care setting. Hundreds of videos across social media platforms show disturbing surveillance of children being harmed in places their parents trusted they would be safe.
Just last week, The Maryland State Department of Education shut down The Oxon Hill Center for Early Learning when a video emerged of an employee allegedly abusing children. The former employee, 23-year-old Kayla Greenwell, was arrested and held with no bond in a Maryland jail.
The facility was closed out of extreme caution for the children, but it left parents scrambling. They had no choice but to find alternate care for their kids.
"Parents might not be able to work, parents might have to stay home. … In this day and age, it's hard," Sabrina Dixon told DC News Now. "So you need reliable child care, and this was reliable child care for us."
If you suspect child abuse, you can call the Childhelp National Child Abuse Hotline at 1-800-422-4453 (1-800-4-A-Child) or go to Childhelp.org. The hotline is available 24/7.
