Minn. Daycare Workers Accused of Abusing Children in Their Care

Two Minnesota daycare workers are facing criminal charges after they were allegedly seen on surveillance footage abusing infants in their care, including holding a cloth over one baby’s mouth and nose and fracturing the leg of another, authorities say.

On Thursday, July 18, Blaine Police arrested Elizabeth Augusta Wiemerslage, 22, and Chloe Kaye Johnson, 24, and charged them with felony malicious punishment of a child under 4, third-degree assault against a victim under 4 and two counts of gross misdemeanor malicious punishment of a child, the StarTribune, Fox 9, and 5 Eyewitness News report.

They were released on Friday after they each posted a $7,500 bond.

The alleged crimes came to authorities’ attention on July 16, when Blaine Police received a report about potential child abuse at the Small World Learning Center after a 5-month-old allegedly came home with unexplained bruising on multiple areas of the lower half of her body the day before, according to the statement of probable cause reviewed by PEOPLE.

When the baby’s parents asked the daycare about the bruises, they were allegedly told that the marks “might be from the chair or swing in the immobile infant room,” the statement says.

But surveillance video police viewed allegedly told another story.

According to the probable cause statement, Johnson is allegedly seen in the video footage handling that baby “roughly on multiple occasions.”

Johnson is seen grabbing the baby by her upper thighs, hip and groin area and violently flipping the baby back and forth from her stomach to her back, with her face hitting the mat over and over again, it alleges.

The baby appears to be screaming with her mouth open as Wiemerslage sits nearby watching, the statement alleges.

Johnson is allegedly then seen picking up another baby and holding a cloth over the baby’s nose and mouth for several seconds, while the baby is crying, before shoving a bottle in and out of the baby’s mouth, the statement claims.

Later on, as Johnson looks on, Wiemerslage picks up that second baby and “violently slams” the infant down into a support pillow, it alleges.

She also aggressively shoved a third baby onto a changing table, it claims.

The statement also alleges that Johnson told police she was trying to help the babies roll over, but admitted later that she’d been “too rough.”

Wiemerslage allegedly told police her behavior was wrong, the statement says.

When police began investigating the center on July 16, police advised parent Cody Pech and his wife to take their 5-month-old son, Cassian, to the pediatrician to have him checked for potential injuries, since their son had also come home with strange bruising, he tells PEOPLE.

Weeks before, they brought Cassian to the pediatrician when he came home from the center with unexplained bruising, he says.

They were more than shocked when they brought him for the new checkup and “learned he suffered a fracture on his tibia,” Pech says. 

Doctors believe the tibia was fractured a week or two before and had already begun healing, Pech says, adding that his son showed no outward signs of a bone break.

“We have felt a wide range of emotions about this, from sadness to anger,” he says. “This was a complete betrayal from that daycare center.”

The two workers allegedly “seemed to feed off each other,” Pech claims. What they allegedly did to the babies in their care “was sick and bizarre,” he says.

Blaine Police and the daycare center did not immediately respond to PEOPLE’s requests for comment.

Attorneys for the daycare workers could not be reached.