A 65-year-old Kansas City, Missouri woman has been charged with multiple counts of child abuse or neglect involving a 10-month old child in a downtown child care center.
Jackson County prosecutors announced Wednesday that Cheryl Tate faces nine Class D felonies of abuse or neglect of a child.
According to court records, the mother of a 10-month-old victim reported that a caretaker at a downtown daycare center had harmed her child.
Investigators for the Missouri Children’s Division began to investigate and KCPD detectives observed bruising to his back and other injuries.
Tate was seen on video being loud and aggressive in her movements and language with the children.
Staff at Children’s Mercy Hospital diagnosed the the child had been the victim of physical abuse.
Video surveillance also showed Tate pushing on the child’s head, slamming him down, slapping him and dropping the young boy. She told police she “let her frustrations get the better of her” and has been dealing with a lot of personal and financial struggle lately.
She told detectives she was responsible for baby’s age six weeks old to one years old, and that started about three weeks before the “incident” crying constantly, constantly, and constantly. She said she would give herself pep talks before going into work in order to “go in there every day and handle the constant crying so she wouldn’t be aggressive and do anything crazy because she knew there were cameras in there”.
Tate said when she couldn’t take it anymore, she was “trying to quiet the infant from crying” and she hit him on the back and smacked him on the face. She admitted to grabbing legs from behind and that is how he must have got the “scratches on his legs. She also admitted to covering his face with a rag and wiping it aggressively as well as, setting down hard in a bouncy chair”.
Tate said she never worried she was injuring but just kept saying, “Please stop crying!” “Please stop crying!”
She said this would happen more than once a day.
Tate was taken into custody as an investigative arrest.
The case remains under investigation.
Prosecutors have requested a $25,000 bond for Tate.
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