Mississippi daycare workers fired after screaming at children in Halloween mask
A Mississippi daycare worker wiped away tears as she apologized for scaring little children with a Halloween mask after her worrying behavior left her unemployed this week.
Staff members at Lil’ Blessings Child Care & Learning Center, located in Hamilton, Miss., were allegedly trying to put a scare into some children who they thought had been “bad,” said a whistleblower in a Facebook post.
Four employees at the facility were fired following the incident, according to local outlet WTVA.
Speaking out after the troubling videos went viral on social media, one daycare worker — who referred to herself as CeeCee — insisted the act was not “ill-intentioned.”
“It wasn’t meant to harm anybody and it wasn’t ill-intentioned,” she said in a video shared on Facebook, according to the Daily Mail.
“The teachers asked me if I would do it or if they could use (the mask) to get their class to listen or clean up. I’m not a child abuser.”
The worker claims she made her plan of scaring the children known to other members of staff but failed to disclose it to the daycare owner, Sheila Sanders.
The daycare is under investigation after workers were caught on video appearing to terrify the children while wearing a mask from the movie “Scream,” according to disturbing footage of the incident.
“I did not go in there at my own discretion. As in, I didn’t go in there with the intention to literally traumatize those children. I expected them to react the way they reacted when I did it,” she said.
The Mississippi State Department of Health and the Monroe County Sheriff’s Office are investigating the ordeal and working with the county prosecutor to see if there are any possible criminal charges that can be filed.
In one of the videos, as seen on Reddit, a woman in the “Scream” mask approaches a group of children while they are sitting at tables and eating lunch.
“It wasn’t meant to harm anybody and it wasn’t ill-intentioned.”
CeeCee
At the sight of the horror-show mask, the toddler begins to scream and cry. The children get visibly more distressed as the videos go on, with some of the children running to hide behind desks and bookshelves.
Insisting that the kids she looked after at the daycare meant everything to her, CeeCee vowed to never visit the premises again.
“Long story short, I bought the masks to scare her [coworker] eventually and they were used inappropriately,” she explained.
“But what you all didn’t see was after I had left the room, I took it off and I went back into the classroom… and I said ‘CeeCee got the monster. It’s not coming back.’ And they would hug me. I’ve known those kids their whole life.”
“They knew it was me, and they had the reaction they did cause they are children and that’s it,” she added.
Sanders said she was only told about the chilling videos on Wednesday, according to the Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal.
Sanders, who has owned the childcare business for two decades, said one of the videos was filmed last month, and the most recent was filmed on Tuesday.
“I contacted my licensure, and she has gotten involved,” Sanders told the outlet. “The people that did those acts are no longer with us. They were fired. I wasn’t here at the time and wasn’t aware they were doing that. I don’t condone that and never have. I just want to say it’s been taken care of.”
With Post wires