Two day care workers are out of work and one is facing a felony charge after a recording shared thousands of times on Facebook appeared to show children being tossed around before naptime at a North Texas day care.
Jazmine Lexus Torres, 22, is one of the women fired and the one facing a felony charge of child endagerment after she was accused of pushing a young child to the floor before picking him up and throwing him onto a rubber mat and covering him with a blanket.
The incident was live streamed from The Children's Courtyard in Plano -- a recording of the video has since been viewed more than 830,000 times on Facebook.
Plano police issued an arrest warrant for Torres on Monday. On Tuesday, Torres surrendered to police and was booked into the Collin County Jail. If convicted of the felony, she faces up to two years in jail and a $10,000 fine.
Torres is no longer employed at the day care and NBC 5 also learned another woman at The Children's Courtyard in Plano has been fired after the video showed her yanking a child by the arm. The second woman is not expected to face any charges.
"Any parent out there, it's going to be something that's just horrific," said Plano police spokesman David Tilley. "But any human being to see a toddler treated that way is just, that's just unacceptable."
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"This child, who was moving before all off a sudden after getting thrown to the ground, is no longer moving," said Tilley. "She [the worker] then covers that child up and then sits down and proceeds on with her day."
Plano police said the child is OK.
The Children's Courtyard sent a statement to NBC 5, which reads, in part:
"We have strict policies and procedures to ensure the safety and wellbeing of our children, and to make certain we meet or exceed state guidelines. We don't tolerate deviation from those standards. Upon being made aware of this situation, we immediately notified the authorities and partnered with the state as well as conducted our own investigation. Those involved are no longer employed with us."
"We will continue to work closely with licensing and reiterate our training processes with all staff. We take our responsibility seriously, and are committed to ensuring our children receive high quality early education and nurturing care."
Regulators with the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services report the day care center, which can accommodate 245 children, has seen 29 violations over the past two years, nine of which are considered serious enough to put children at risk.
Marissa Gonzales, spokesperson for the Department of Protective and Family Services, said that's not uncommon for a large day care center like The Children's Courtyard.
"When it becomes an issue is when you see a long-standing pattern of issues where an operation has refused to fix those problems or really address them or when you have a very severe, one specific, very severe incident," Gonzales said.
