ST. LOUIS, Mo. — A mother in St. Louis could not hold back tears when she saw a video of what many are calling a "fight club" at her children's day care, organized by teachers.
Video taken by a 10-year-old on his iPad captured the alleged fight club. It shows his little brother crying after three fights. One teacher is excited, while the other teachers put Hulk fists on preschoolers.
"He doesn't understand why his friends were fighting him, why he was beat up by his best friends - and it was on his fourth birthday," his mother Nicole Merseal told KTVI.
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The fight begins, the kids fall. A teacher kicks in the air in excitement. The only person who tries breaking it up is another preschooler, but he cannot stop one child from pounding the other's head into the floor.
Merseal believes it only stopped because her older son texted her video. She called the director to stop it. "He said the day care was making them fight, not helping them," said Merseal.
Day care cameras recorded at least 30 minutes - fight after fight - video Merseal says can be monitored by staff. Though it happened nearly two years ago, Merseal doesn't think enough was done.
A police report says the director immediately fired both teachers and called the child abuse hotline. But the St. Louis circuit attorney's office declined to prosecute.
Though state regulators substantiated the complaint, Adventure Learning Center continued operating normally, but with increased inspections. Eight visits since document 26 wide-ranging violations, though none exactly like the fight club incident.
In March 2018, a 4-year-old child said a teacher cussed at him, flicked him, grabbed him and pushed him to the ground. Also this year another report says an "agency staff member observed a caregiver grab a child approximately 3 years old by the arm and drag/carry the child." The report adds that the director was standing in this classroom and did not respond.
Merseal wonders about training, pointing to how a teacher noticed her son crying that December day in 2016. "In the video, he is wiping his face over and over again. The day care worker - you see her walk over to him and tell him, you know, 'you are fine' and pat him on the back and then walk and start another fight with other kids."
She says now she struggles making her son realize fighting at day care is not really widely accepted. "When we chose a new day care for him and he started going he asked me in the car if they were going to make him fight."
The circuit attorney's office said it did not prosecute the teachers because there was not enough evidence that any laws were broken.
CNN/KTVI
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