Surveillance footage allegedly shows a Texas daycare worker forcing children to fight each other (The Button Law Firm).
A Texas daycare was allegedly turned into a “child fight club,” with a mom and dad saying their 4-year-old son was told to brawl with another youngster — leading to physical, psychological and emotional injuries, a lawsuit states.
Heather and Richard Harris are suing Arka Montessori Academy of Risinger in Fort Worth, claiming their son was subjected to a terrifying ordeal on April 27 that left him with multiple bruises and scratches, post-traumatic headaches, and pain to his backside. The Fort Worth parents say a worker was caught on surveillance video grabbing and shaking the boy before yanking his leg out from under him and sending him crashing onto a hardwood floor.
The worker allegedly ordered the child to fight another boy — her own son, according to the civil complaint.
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“Arka Montessori treated 4-year-old [son] like a human ragdoll,” the complaint says. “He was forced to physically defend himself from both a child and an adult 10 times his size.”
The boy’s parents say he had been moved into a different classroom around 4:30 p.m. after his regular teacher left for the day. Surveillance footage allegedly shows another child walking up to their son and hitting him in the back while the teacher watching him had her back turned toward the children. A physical fight then broke out, the lawsuit says.
Another teacher can be seen on video entering the room to cover for the teacher watching the 4-year-old while she went to the restroom, the complaint says. It was her son who had allegedly hit the boy.
“Video footage then shows the boy pointing at [the son]Â before rushing at [the son] and pushing [the son] in the chest with both hands,” the complaint says. “When [the son] puts his hands up to stop the boy, [the mother of the other child] lunges forward, grabbing at [the son] with her left hand as he tries to get away. She gets a hold of [the son’s] arm and aggressively grabs and shakes him before shoving him away forcefully.”
The teacher, who is the other child’s mother, can be seen telling her son something on camera, which the lawyers for Heather and Richard Harris allege was an order to attack.
She “forcefully drags” the couple’s child toward her and he is seen “struggling and trying to get away” as the teacher grabs her own son and drags him closer to Heather and Richard Harris’ son, the complaint says.
“[The teacher] wanted a fight!” the complaint alleges.
According to another teacher, the mother of the other child was telling her son to kick Heather and Richard Harris’ son and “trying to force” her son to hit their child before she reached out, grabbed hold of him, “yanked him closer and held on as he tried to escape,” the complaint states.
The teacher who had left to go to the restroom allegedly returned and watched the “fight” unfold without doing anything. “[The teacher] looks on and does nothing to intervene,” the complaint says.
Heather and Richard Harris say the incident left their son “anxious, afraid to be left alone” and “in constant need of positive reassurance.” He becomes “easily frustrated” now, which causes “emotional outbursts that Heather describes as sudden and intense,” according to the complaint.
They “immediately” unenrolled the boy from Arka Montessori, but the transition to a new daycare was “extremely difficult,” the complaint says.
“[The boy] would often be so afraid of going to daycare that he would freeze up and refuse to go into his classroom, clinging to his parents in the doorway while tears ran down his face,” the complaint alleges. “While in daycare, his emotional outbursts were often aggressive and triggered by his fear of the environment — mimicking the behavior he was forced to endure while at Arka Montessori and ultimately leading to him being pulled out of daycare entirely in hopes that would help him cope with his anxiety.”
Arka Montessori has not responded to requests for comment from Law&Crime and local media outlets in Fort Worth.
The post Daycare turned into ‘child fight club’ by worker who forced little kids to brawl with each other, including her own son, while another staffer watched: Lawsuit first appeared on Law & Crime.
