A instructor at a Queens daycare for autistic toddlers bruised a 3-year-old’s arm after which rubbed hand sanitizer in his mouth — and the college tried to cowl all of it up, in line with a brand new lawsuit and police information.
Trainer Heidi Velasco Munoz pleaded responsible to endangering the welfare of a kid and advised police when she was arrested after the 2023 incident that “I don’t have an evidence” for why she put hand sanitizer into the non-verbal youngster’s mouth.
The lawsuit claims the daycare, Blissful Dragon Kids Studying Heart in Corona, “by no means reported the abuse” to the mother and father, and didn’t fireplace Munoz instantly, regardless of it being captured on the college’s video surveillance.
“I trusted them,” mother Sabrina Gentile advised The Submit. “They failed me and my household.”
“Regardless that this occurred in 2023 it nonetheless causes ache to all of us,” Gentile mentioned.
“Whereas justice has been performed on the felony facet, we now search for justice on the civil facet,” mentioned the household’s attorneys, Sanford Rubenstein and Mark Shirian.
After returning dwelling from daycare in March 2023, the boy’s mother was alarmed to see his arm coated in bruises.
“Once I took his coat off and noticed these bruises on his arms, I mechanically referred to as the daycare,” Gentile mentioned.
However the daycare stonewalled her and the boy’s father after they got here within the subsequent day, and even issued a false incident report claiming their non-verbal son bit himself, signed by the instructor and the daycare’s director.
“I’m in a position to inform the distinction between a chunk mark and a bruise,” Gentille mentioned, who’s spent over a decade working as an EMS first-responder. “It appeared like fingerprints.”
Rubenstein added, “That was clearly an try at a cover-up. Clearly, on this case, the cover-up failed.”
The daycare even refused to share surveillance footage depicting the disturbing incident for hours when father German Vasquez returned the following day, so he referred to as the police.
“The college didn’t need to present us nothing till the police really arrived on the scene,” Vasquez advised The Submit.
Police stories describe the video as displaying Munoz “aggressively pinning” the crying, non-verbal youngster between her legs, eradicating a toy from his mouth, “deliberately flicking” his arm and “forcibly inserting an unknown substance into [his] mouth.”
“I used to be in shock,” Vasquez mentioned. “I used to be seeing the girl rubbing stuff in my son’s mouth.”
“They weren’t defending my son,” he added.
Gentile rushed her boy to the hospital, considering his instructor had been forcibly medicating him. Toxicology assessments got here up damaging.
Munoz readily admitted to police after her arrest a month later that she’d caught hand sanitizer within the boy’s mouth, police stories state.
“It was not acceptable to restrain him that manner,” she mentioned, in line with police information of physique digital camera footage, “and I felt dangerous once I did it.”
When an officer requested her about placing hand sanitizer within the boy’s mouth, she replied: “Sure. I don’t have an evidence for that.”
“Regardless of the egregious nature of Munoz’s conduct, Blissful Dragon failed to right away terminate Munoz and didn’t implement any safeguards to forestall additional abuse,” the go well with states.
An administrator at Blissful Dragon mentioned that they weren’t conscious of the incident, and The Submit was unable to contact Munoz.
A spokesperson from the Queens District Lawyer mentioned they didn’t have any details about Munoz or her case, however in line with information obtained by way of FOIL, Munoz pleaded responsible to endangering the welfare of a kid in November 2023 and was sentenced to fifteen days of group service.
Almost two years later, the boy is doing higher and loves his new college. However his mother and pa can inform he will get nervous in the event that they drive towards his outdated daycare.
“I feel my son remembers clearly,” Vasquez mentioned, “as a result of as I’m driving over the freeway, he will get uncomfortable, he begins to make noise.”
“To at the present time, I don’t actually drive that path,” Gentile mentioned.
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