Two Minnesota daycare workers have been arrested after being captured on surveillance footage reportedly brutally assaulting newborn children in their care, including “violently” flipping infants and shattering at least one baby’s leg.
Elizabeth Augusta Wiemerslage, 22, and Chloe Kaye Johnson, 24, were arrested on Thursday and charged with three charges of malicious punishment of a child and one case of third-degree assault on a victim under the age of four, according to records reviewed by Law&Crime.
Officers from the Blaine Police Department began investigating the Small World Learning Center in the 1300 block of Paul Parkway Northeast on July 16, after Minneapolis Children’s Hospital personnel contacted the center about a 5-month-old infant with suspicious bruising on her thighs, according to Saint Paul, Minnesota ABC affiliate KSTP.
Detectives from the Blaine Police Department interviewed the victim’s parents, who stated that when they picked up their child from the daycare center, they observed new bruises. They contacted the institution to inquire. Someone at the daycare told the parents that the child’s bruises “might be from the chair or swing in the immobile infant room,” according to Minneapolis Fox station KMSP.
In individual police interviews, Johnson and Wiemerslage allegedly provided identical excuses, blaming the injuries on the daycare’s chairs and swings.
According to the Star Tribune, video footage from within the facility calls both defendants’ assertions into question.
According to a probable cause affidavit filed in Anoka County District Court, Johnson can be seen on film “grabbing [one infant] by her upper thighs, hip, and groin area and violently flips [the baby] back and forth from her stomach to her back.” “[The infant’s] arms are flailing outward, and her body is consistently rigid as her face contacts the floor mat repeatedly as she is being flipped and her head is unsupported.”
Though the video lacks audio, authorities reportedly stated that the newborn “appears to be screaming with her mouth open as this is happening,” and Wiemerslage was there.
In another incident, Johnson allegedly “roughly” takes up a newborn and is seen “holding a cloth over the (second) infant’s mouth for several seconds while the infant is crying,” according to KMSP.
Video footage purportedly shows Wiemerslage “violently” picking up another sobbing youngster by the arms and “aggressively” pushing the baby over a floor mat. She then allegedly grabs the first youngster by the legs and “aggressively drags” it to her before “slamming” it into a cushion.
According to police, none of the child victims looked to be capable of walking or crawling on their own.
In a statement to the Tribune, Blaine Police Capt. Mark Boerboom described the claims against the two women as “exceptionally shocking.”
“Most parents drop their children off at daycare centers believing that their child will be safe, especially since there is usually more than one care provider watching their child at any one given time,” according to the captain’s statement. “In this case, we found two workers working together with infants, both aggressively abusing children.”
Wiemerslage and Johnson were both released on bond one day after their arrest.
The parent of the 5-month-old infant objected to the suspected abusers being free. “Two daycare teachers were caught on camera abusing infants at the small world learning center in Blaine MN and our 5-month-old son was one of them,” Cody Pech said in a Facebook post.”
They abused him, causing scrapes and bruises all over his body, as well as a damaged leg. The nasty humans who did this were arrested on Thursday but have since been released on bail. Please share this post so that everyone understands what these awful people did.”