Report: Florida day care teacher arrested after breaking boy’s leg

A day care teacher in Florida forcefully picked up a crying 3-year-old boy in her care, carried him across the room dropped him on the floor and broke his leg, according to a police report.

Boca Raton police said the incident happened last week after rain cut short playtime and the child was angry that he had to come inside.

The teacher, Estefany Delossngeles Acosta, 24, was fired Friday for lying about the child’s injury, the Palm Beach Post reported. The owner of the Early Learning Center contacted the Florida Department of Children and Families on Sunday after watching the six minutes of video captured on the classroom’s camera.

She was arrested Tuesday and charged with aggravated child abuse. A judge on Wednesday ordered Acosta, a native and resident of Venezuela, to surrender her passport within 24 hours of being released from the Palm Beach County Jail. She has lived in Boca Raton since November and has worked at the child care center.

The video showed the boy stomping back into the classroom and plopping onto the carpet. He spat on the carpet while ignoring his teacher, a police report said.

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Video showed that the teacher dropped the boy face down on the floor and as she knelt beside him, her knee landed on his, breaking his tibia, the report said.

Investigators said the boy was in obvious pain, but no one appeared to notice the severity of his injuries until his mother arrived to pick him up five hours later. During two of those hours, a Florida Department of Health investigators was inspecting the school for a routine check, records show.

The child’s mother told investigators she found her son in severe pain, sitting down and shivering. She said he had urinated on himself and had not eaten.

She told investigators the boy told her the teacher sat on his leg because he was misbehaving. Police said the teacher wrote in an injury report filed with the school that the boy had hurt his leg when her leg pressed down on his as she helped him clean the rug. The report indicated she gave him ice for the injury.

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Another employee told investigators the teacher told her that the boy hurt himself when he kicked a metal chair. That employee left a message with the boy’s mother and called the boy’s father. The father told investigators he was told the boy had a bump on his leg and he didn’t pick the child up early because it didn’t sound serious.

The teacher admitted to investigators “that the manner in which she picked up (the boy) was inappropriate, dangerous and could have led to him being seriously injured,” the report said.

Court records did not list a lawyer for Delosangeles Acosta.