Left to right: Chloe Kaye Johnson, Elizabeth Augusta Wiemerslage (Anoka County). Inset: Small World Learning Center (Google Maps).
Two day care workers in Minnesota have been arrested after they were allegedly caught on surveillance footage severely abusing young children in their care, “violently” flipping infants and fracturing at least one baby’s leg.
Elizabeth Augusta Wiemerslage, 22, and Chloe Kaye Johnson, 24, were taken into custody on Thursday and charged with three counts each of malicious punishment of a child and one count each of third-degree assault of a victim under age 4, records reviewed by Law&Crime show.
Officers with the Blaine Police Department began looking into the Small World Learning Center in the 1300 block of Paul Parkway Northeast on July 16, after personnel with the Minneapolis Children’s Hospital contacted the center regarding a 5-month-old infant with suspicious bruising on her thighs, Saint Paul, Minnesota ABC affiliate KSTP reported.
Detectives with the Blaine Police Department interviewed the victim’s parents, who said when they picked up their child from the day care center and they noticed the child had suffered fresh bruising. They contacted the establishment to inquire.
Someone at the day care told the parents that the child’s bruises “might be from the chair or swing in the immobile infant room,” Minneapolis Fox affiliate KMSP reported. In individual interviews with police, both Johnson and Wiemerslage allegedly gave similar explanations, blaming the day care’s chairs and swings for the injuries.
However, surveillance footage from inside the facility undercut both of the defendants’ claims, per the Star Tribune.
Johnson is allegedly seen on video as she “grabs [one infant] by her upper thighs, hip and groin area and violently flips [the baby] back and forth from her stomach to her back,” police reportedly wrote in a probable cause affidavit filed in Anoka County District Court. “[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 does not have audio, police reportedly said that the infant “appears to be screaming with her mouth open as this is happening and Wiemerslage was allegedly watching.
In another instance, Johnson allegedly “roughly” picks up an infant and can be seen “holding a cloth over the (second) infant’s mouth for several seconds while the infant is crying,” per KMSP.
Footage also allegedly shows Wiemerslage “violently” pick up another crying infant by their arms and “aggressively” moving the baby across a floor mat. She then allegedly grabbed the first infant by the legs and “aggressively drags” the baby to her before she “slams” the infant into a pillow.
Police reportedly said that none of the child victims appeared able to walk or crawl on their own.
In a statement to the Tribune, Blaine Police Capt. Mark Boerboom referred to the allegations against the two women were “exceptionally shocking.”
“Most parents drop their children off at day care 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,” the captain’s statement read. “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 arrests
A parent of the 5-month-old child balked at the notion of the accused abusers being free.
“Two daycare teachers were caught on camera abusing infants at small world learning center in Blaine MN and our 5 month old son was one of them,” Cody Pech wrote in a Facebook post. “He received scratches and bruises all over his body and suffered a fractured leg from their abuse. The despicable humans that did this were arrested on Thursday but are already out on bail. Please share this post so the world knows what these evil human beings did.”
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