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A lawsuit alleges a day care abused children at a day care in Texas (The Button Law Firm).
A Texas day care worker is accused of physically and verbally abusing three toddlers at a YMCA child care center housed in an elementary school.
The lawsuit, filed on Jan. 23, alleges that the YMCA failed to report incidents to the state or the parents despite laws requiring them to and kept the caregiver on staff despite evidence of abuse. That caregiver has since been arrested and charged in the case and has since been terminated from her job.
“Nothing about what happened at the YMCA or how the organization operated this day care center is acceptable. Innocent toddlers were severely mistreated on multiple occasions,” says Russell Button, day care and child injury lawyer of The Button Law Firm, who represents the three families involved in the lawsuit against the YMCA of Central Texas. “This ongoing trauma and mistreatment of toddlers could have been avoided had the YMCA managed its day care properly and according to the law. We are committed to holding the YMCA accountable for allowing such horrific treatment and operating with unsafe practices, and we are working to ensure it never happens again at this facility.”
The lawsuit names the YMCA of Central Texas, which operates the child care program at Northwest Elementary School.
According to local ABC affiliate KVUE, the YMCA said that after it reviewed “evidence of physical aggression directed at several of our students,” it terminated Browning’s employment and quickly alerted parents, Child Protective Services (CPS) and local authorities.
“The well-being of our students is our utmost priority,” the YMCA said. “We follow the state’s guidelines on safety and run extensive background checks before hiring employees. The YMCA of Central Texas is committed to ensuring the safest possible environment for our families.”
The allegations surfaced in late February 2024, when a “Pandora’s box was opened” during a simple hunt for a child’s missing shoe that revealed “regular and ongoing use of prohibited punishments against multiple children,” the lawsuit said.
The YMCA senior program director contacted the Pflugerville Independent School District (ISD) to help watch video footage to locate a missing shoe. While on the phone, the human resources director of Pflugerville ISD saw a YMCA employee subjecting kids on video footage to “inappropriate and unsafe discipline methods,” the lawsuit said.
Video footage from Feb. 21, 2024, shows several children playing in a small makeshift enclosure as the employee is seen sitting on a chair and looking at her cellphone, “completely inattentive to the children in her care,” the complaint said.
The YMCA employee is then seen walking over to a child, aggressively grabbing her right upper arm and forcefully walking her to the middle of the enclosure, where she makes the child sit on the floor, according to the documents.
After placing the child on the floor, the YMCA employee is seen looking back at her cellphone as the child appears extremely upset.
Frustrated by the child’s crying, the footage then shows the YMCA employee grabbing the child by the throat and choking and shaking the child as she berates her for crying, the court documents alleged.
Terrified, the girl is seen grabbing onto the YMCA employee’s hand, which is gripped around her throat, the documents said. The employee then releases the girl and resumes looking at her cellphone as she continues crying.
As the Pflugerville ISD Police Department began investigating the Feb. 21 footage, the girl’s mother reported to detectives that she would often come home with unexplained bruises and scratches, the lawsuit said.
When the mother asked about the injuries, the YMCA could not explain how she got them and did not provide incident reports, the document said.
As detectives continued to watch more video footage, they saw more alleged abuse. The lawsuit lists nine other incidents between Jan. 29 and Feb. 21, 2024. In one, video footage shows the employee grabbing a child by the back of the neck, spinning her around 180 degrees, and forcing her to the floor before stomping off, the lawsuit said. A few seconds later, the employee walks back toward the girl and berates her, causing the girl to cry hysterically and her young classmates to freeze in fear as they watch, the document said.
“The investigation that followed revealed the conduct of the YMCA employee was common at the YMCA,” the lawsuit added. “Additional video footage revealed numerous other children were subjected to the same or similar prohibited forms of punishments.”
The lawsuit also outlined citations issued by the Texas Health and Human Services Commission Child Care Licensing Division dating back to 2019 for various safety violations.