Day Care Fight Club: Workers Arrrested for Encouraging 3-Year-Olds to Fight
Three Delaware day care workers have been charged with running an official toddler fight club after it was discovered that the workers encouraged the kids to fight under their supervision.
Tiana Harris, 19, Lisa Parker, 47, and Estefania Myers, 21, have been arrested after a video showing children fighting with each other as the supervisors watch on has been unveiled. The workers had allegedly gone as far as to encourage the two 3-year old children to fight in what appeared to be an arranged standoff, according to Fox News. Even when the children turned away from the fight, they were directed back by one of the instructors.
"It was a difficult video to watch," Dover Police Capt. Tim Stump told FoxNews.com. "One of the kids involved ran over to one of the adults for protection, but she turned him around back into the fight."
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The instructors can also be heard stating what was within the rules of the fight.
"He's pinching me!" a police officer reported one of the children saying. The officer then charged that the day care worker responded by saying, "No pinching, only punching."
Although neither of the children suffered from any serious injury, two of the instructors appeared to assist the children in hurting one another while the third instructor filmed the event on her cell phone.
"The bottom line is that the kids were whaling on each other and the adults were doing nothing to stop it," Stump said. "In fact, they were egging it on."
The incident occurred at the Hands of Our Future Daycare in Dover, Delaware. A full investigation has been launched in order to uncover the details of what occurred. In the meantime, all three workers were charged with assault, endangering the welfare of a child, reckless endangering and conspiracy.
Parents, who learned of the incident on Monday during a school meeting, had doubts about the video and stated that the incident seemed out of the ordinary.
"It's very disturbing to think anything like that could go on," Amy Bickerling, whose 4-year-old son is enrolled at the center, told Delaware Online. "I know these teachers. I go on all the field trips. I've never seen anything irregular."
