Two childcare center employees in South Carolina, USA, have been accused of inciting fights among the kids and then failing to intervene to break up the fights. According to the police, three and four-year-olds in the care of Serena Caldwell, 56, and Ericka Jones, 27, would be instructed to slap, pull, and kick each other.
The daycare owner stated that both Caldwell and Jones were dismissed right away after other staff members filed a complaint and surveillance video was reviewed. The conflicts amongst the kids were captured on tape.
There were fourteen youngsters engaged, ages three to four, according to Sheriff Lee Foster, who spoke with the news site WLTX. He claimed that the two defendants would frequently inform a youngster that another person had been promoted by the center. Following a fight between the kids, Jones and Caldwell “allowed the violence to proceed without correction,” according to the police.
“It was a situation where they were participating in it by encouraging the kids, and they kind of looked at it as something maybe almost equivalent to a sporting event where they were kind of trying to motivate the kids into participating in that,” Sheriff Lee Foster said.
“I have no idea what the two daycare workers were thinking of – that was just abhorrent behavior. I just can’t imagine why you would do this,” he added.
One victim’s father informed the local media that their child was instructed to strike another youngster, then instructed to do it again.
The parents of the victims as well as the police said that only the two “rogue employees” were to blame for the fight ring, which wasn’t organized inside the daycare.
