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Sugar Cookie

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The Los Angeles County Sheriffs Department’s Lancaster station is investigating after a daycare provider was caught on video allegedly abusing a young special needs girl she’s supposed to be taking care of.

The video was taken at Tierra Bonita Park and it allegedly shows daycare provider Yolanda Keith grabbing and snacking Ashley Holmes' 9-year-old daughter Mercedes, who is autistic, non-verbal, and has cerebral palsy.

“When I watched it I was more in shock,” she said. “My daughter is just sitting there and she doesn’t fight back, doesn’t cry, so to me it’s like if she’s doing that in public how long has she been doing this? Has she been doing stuff to her in private?”

Holmes told FOX 11 the daycare provider is Yolanda Keith, a woman she has worked with for the past several years.

“I got her through CCRC, the childcare resource center, through a referral,” she said. “I had interviewed her with their dad at the time and she seemed fine, she’s licensed, so that’s how we got everything with her.”

Keith operates her daycare business out of her home in Palmdale.

According to state records from the Department of Social Services, DSS has visited Keith’s home seven times since 2015. She has been cited nine times, including five class A citations, meaning an immediate health or safety issue.

Keith was last cited in March after DSS says a child suffered a burn on its arm after coming into contact with a heater in Keith’s bathroom after being left unattended for a long period of time.

Holmes now plans to press charges against her.

Holmes filed a police report with LASD’s Lancaster station, and they confirmed to FOX 11 they are investigating the case.
 
Here's what I see. She has her arm around the girl's shoulders, the girl pushes her arm off, she impulsively grabs the girl's head as she's done many times before, but then realizes she's in public and tries to smooth it over by straightening the girl's hair. No it's not hitting, but it did look aggressive and it looked like she only stopped because she was in public.

Maybe some parents handle their own kids that way, idk. But handling someone else's child (especially a nonverbal special needs child who doesn't seem to be misbehaving in any way) that roughly is completely inappropriate. I've worked for years with kids with every range of disabilities, from emotional-behavioral disorders to wheelchair bound and tube fed. If I ever handled a child in this manner, I would be fired.
 
She did it aggressively and in anger, is what I read from her body language. Then tried to cover it up. If she didn't know she was doing something wrong, why try to cover it up? I don't think this rises to the level of actual abuse or a criminal charge, but someone should find that girl a new babysitter.
 
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