A white day care worker in Los Angeles was fired after she was caught on video throwing a shoe at a young Black child with special needs. The chilling incident occurred on Jan. 16.
Surveillance video shared by local news outlets showed an employee of Destiny Development Center in Inglewood remove her shoe and pitch it across the room, where it struck a 5-year-old girl named Beautiful in the ear. The day care worker then hugged the girl and said, “I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean that,” despite appearing on the video to aim at the child when the girl crawled off her sleeping mat.
Two additional employees in the room at the time are shown laughing in the video as Beautiful erupted into shrieks and tears. Those employees initially received suspensions but were later fired along with the assailant after further review of the footage by the day care’s director and owner, Danielle Williams.
NEW: Daycare worker caught on camera removing her shoe and chucking it at a 5-year-old special needs girl while other employees appear to laugh.
— Collin Rugg (@CollinRugg) February 5, 2026
The mother of the girl is demanding action after she was hit with a shoe at the Los Angeles daycare.
Destiny Development Center… pic.twitter.com/PTbszE0USi
Firing is not enough for Beautiful’s mother, Michelea Jones, who spoke to local news station KTLA to demand justice. The aggrieved mother is calling for the arrest of all three employees involved, none of whom have been formally charged as of this writing. “Like anybody else who laughs at child abuse, you need to be in jail,” she said. “That’s what I want. Justice.”
“I’ve been knowing these people for three years,” said the shaken mother, who entrusted Beautiful and a second child to the center. “I really thought my baby was safe.”
Beautiful’s aunt, Kira Townsend, told reporters that they learned of the incident from the child that evening and filed a complaint the next morning. She expressed disappointment that the daycare’s management was unaware of what happened.
“How do you have a business and you don’t review the footage?” she asked. “Why do we have to wait for my niece to come and tell us, ‘Hey, my teacher hit me in the ear with a shoe?’”
The family also claimed the center was uncooperative at first and that they were not allowed to see the surveillance video for two weeks.
Since news broke of the incident, Williams condemned the abuse, saying, “I wouldn’t wish this on anybody’s child, and we don’t stand for it. We don’t agree with it.”
In a five-minute Facebook video uploaded on Feb. 4, the day care owner stated that all employees undergo extensive background checks and receive proper training. She expressed shock at the “very disheartening” treatment of Beautiful, but also said, “When we hire staff, we cannot predict that there may be a day when they decide to abuse a child. When we hire staff, we also can’t predict that the staff member will fail to report an incident when it occurs.”
“It has always been our No. 1 priority to protect, love, and train every child that walks through our doors. Not once have we had an incident of this nature,” Williams added.
She stated that the video has been turned over to the state, and according to Fox11, the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department is investigating.
