An Albuquerque, New Mexico daycare worker has been fired and the centre closed following cellphone footage of the employee forcefully rocking a baby in her arms.
The incident took place on Sept. 18 and a co-worker caught the whole ordeal on her phone. When the daycare director saw the video, she fired the worker.
“She was let go immediately. I asked her ‘why?’ She said she just had one bad day,” said Hanna Tapia, the director of the centre, to KOB News. “We told her that wasn’t acceptable behaviour, she could’ve really hurt that baby.”
The infant is only six months old and the mother, who is also a worker at the daycare, is upset by the event.
“I was shaking, I was so angry and hurt because I have never had any concerns about my daughter’s teacher. She was always well trusted and well liked,” the baby’s mother said to KOB.
The closure of the daycare means 289 kids will have to be placed elsewhere and 33 employees are now without a job.
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“This is the best place for my kids and the number one place I’d prefer my kids to be at. I don’t understand why they had to close it down if the teacher’s gone,” said one parent. “She’s gone, she’s over with. Can we please get the place back open? It’s a major inconvenience.”
Tapia is asking the same question.
“We have nothing that is even a pattern of any kind of neglect or abuse of children here… Why are we shut down? Why aren’t they doing something to the person that caused this? That could’ve hurt a baby? That hasn’t been arrested? That’s just been sitting at home?”
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The fired employee has not been identified since no charges have been laid against her.
Officials continue to investigate.
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