A Florida daycare worker was arrested on accusations that she angrily struck a child and tossed the child to the floor during an apparent timeout, according to police.
Marlissa Qyera Rozier, 25, is charged with child neglect causing great bodily harm after video surveillance showed her lifting a child up two to three feet off the ground and forcibly throwing her to the floor in a daycare room, an affidavit shows, Fox 35 reported.
An investigation into the alleged incident began Tuesday after the owner of M&M Family Care Center, Inc. in Cocoa, Florida, reported observing on surveillance footage a teacher abusing a girl inside a classroom.
The girl, Journ’i, also started crying more than usual and told her parents Monday night that her buttocks was hurting, the child’s parents told police.
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According to the affidavit, detectives reviewed the surveillance footage and observed the child playing with a toy and “happily jumping around.” In the footage, Rozier spoke some words and then angrily walked to the child and struck her on the head before she fell to the floor.
Rozier approached the child again about 20 minutes later, grabbed her by the arms and lifted her three to four feet off the ground before aggressively walking the girl to a corner and tossing her on the floor, which resulted in the child hitting her head and body against the wall.
“It is heartbreaking. I don’t like to look at it because it gets me angry every time I see it,” Journ’i’s mother, Annie Smith, told Fox 35.
Smith recalled that her daughter attempted to explain what happened in the incident.
“She told her sister, she said ‘my teacher hit me like this,’ and she jumped up on the floor and fell back down. I told my husband, ‘Look, pay attention to what she’s saying,’” Smith told the outlet.
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Another teacher at the daycare also said she went to check out the classroom after hearing a thump, but that Rozier explained that the child had fallen and “all was well,” according to arrest records, Fox 35 reported. When questioned about the incident, Rozier again claimed the girl had fallen before leaving for lunch and not returning to work for the rest of the day.
“The daycare did everything right,” Cocoa Police Department spokesperson Yvonne Martinez told Fox 35. “They took the action they needed to take. The employee is no longer employed there.”
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Additional charges are expected in this case, as detectives said they identified other victims in the classroom.
Rozier was booked on Wednesday before being released the next day on a $5,000 bond.
