Parents fighting for justice, answers after Blaine daycare workers charged in child abuse case
By Ubah Ali
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BLAINE, Minnesota (WCCO) — There are new disturbing details, from a north metro family who say their daycare center betrayed them.
The Blaine Police Department says it received a report of potential child abuse from the Children’s Hospital in Minneapolis last Tuesday. The hospital reported a 5-month-old child had unexplained bruising and they believed the abuse occurred at Small World Daycare Center in Blaine.
Janice and Tony Degonda don’t understand why anyone would want to hurt their 5-month-old baby.
“She’s bright and bubbly and loves to smile,” Tony Degonda said.
In April, they enrolled her in Small World Daycare Center in Blaine. They say in May, they started to notice bruising all over her body.
After reviewing surveillance footage from the daycare, police arrested two caretakers: A 22-year-old woman from Coon Rapids and a 24-year-old woman from Andover.
The women were each charged on Friday with three counts of malicious punishment of a child and one count of third-degree assault. Two of those charges are felonies.
According to charging documents, surveillance footage shows Chloe Johnson and Elizabeth Wiemerslage violently flipping and aggressively shoving not only Degonda’s daughter who is “Infant 1” in charging documents.
Detectives detailed what the video showed to the family.
“When they went to do tummy time again, she got close to the ground, and she dropped her face bounced off the mat,” Janice Degonda said.
Police say that while looking at the footage, two other victims of abuse were identified.
At one point, investigators say video shows Johnson holding a cloth over another infant’s mouth and nose for several seconds
Johnson admitted her behavior could have led to baby Degonda’s bruising and Wiemerslage also admitted to her behavior.
Rep. Nolan West’s daughter also attended this same daycare before he pulled her out earlier this year. He said he received incident reports for bruising.
“She had a really weird bruise on her back they said she rolled on a magnet,” he said. “You are paying for your baby to be abused.”
West says he met with investigators and showed pictures his wife took but was upset when he found out the daycare also stores footage for seven days.
West is calling for change so children can be protected from their abusers and he believes video evidence will do just that.
“Six months of retention is reasonable, if there is ever an incident keeping that for 3 years because it matches up with mandatory reporting guidelines,” West said.
On Wednesday, he plans to hold a 4 p.m. news conference at Blaine City Hall, offering legislative solutions so that what happened at Small World Daycare Center doesn’t happen again. He will be joined by other parents of Blaine daycare abuse victims.
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