CLERMONT, Fla. (WOFL FOX 35) - Authorities say a daycare worker in Lake County is accused of dropping and battering a child. Clermont Police say they have video of Children's Palace Learning Center director Kimberly Reid hitting a 4-year-old boy with stuffed animals and her hands. Clermont Police Officer Erin Razo says it's video that's hard to watch.
"It looks like he was laying on a children's mat, like for naptime, and she walked over and was striking him several times with stuffed animals," he explains, "and at one point in the video, you see her actually pick the child up and drop him from about two to three feed off the ground."
The video was taken by another daycare worker who told police this is not the first time this has happened. According to a police report, the woman told police that Reid has been rough with kids for three weeks.
According to court records, she pleaded guilty to charges of grand theft, welfare fraud, and organized fraud in Orange County. She was on community supervision and probation from 2004 to 2009 and again in 2013, which was set to end in April of next year.
FOX 35 left a message at the daycare and also called the Department of Children and Families, which regulates daycares, to find out why a convicted felon was running a child care facility. We had not heard back from them at the time this story was published.
Reid faces child abuse charges.