3 charged for leaving infant inside closed Philadelphia daycare: DA

PHILADELPHIA - Three former Philadelphia day care workers are being held responsible for leaving a 6-month-old girl asleep inside a closed daycare in February. 

Janae Smith, 22, Sydia Thomas-Ishman, 23, and Gabriela Rivas, 35, were each charged with endangering the welfare of a child and conspiracy. 

Investigators say on Feb. 1 police were called to the New Arisens Day Care on Whittaker Avenue around 5:30 p.m. after the child's parents came to pick up their daughter and found the building closed a half hour early.

Police tried to call the phone number on the building's front window and got no response. They managed to contact the owners of other daycare centers to finally get in touch with the owner and manager of New Arisens. 

Janae Smith, 22, Sydia Thomas-Ishman, 23, and Gabriela Rivas, 35, were each charged with endangering the welfare of a child and conspiracy. 

Day care management couldn't get the steel front gate to lift higher than 4-feet, which required members of the Philadelphia Fire Department to cut through the gate to finally allow police inside. 

Police said the infant was found asleep in her car seat in a corner of the darkened daycare center. She was taken to St. Christopher's Hospital for Children for medical evaluation.

"We were recommended to this day care by a family friend and my sister worked there in the summertime, so we thought we were in good hands and to come out to this is heartbreaking," Cam'ron Banks, the child's father, said.