OKLAHOMA CITY (KFOR) — Police are investigating after a babysitter allegedly abused a young child and was reportedly caught on camera in the act. Video of the incident has gone viral.
It happened earlier this week at a home in NW OKC.
According to officials with the Oklahoma City Police Department, the mother of a two-year-old child contacted officers after cameras in her home caught a babysitter abusing the child.
According to the police report, the cameras captured the babysitter picking up the child by his arm and throwing him into his bed. She then appears to reach into the bed to grab his body and turn him around.
The video was first posted on the Edmond Babysitter’s page on Facebook, and has since been viewed over 70,000 times.
Most of those views are from parents in the group, like Scott Lewis Jr.
“When something like this happens, it makes you realize, you know, who else is in that group that you don’t know about,” Lewis Jr. told News 4.
The babysitter at the center of the viral clip is now a suspect in a police investigation.
“The mother of the child was at work and she had a camera set up that was motion activated and she was able to look at what was going on in the home,” MSgt. Gary Knight with the OCPD said.
According to the police report, the babysitter is heard telling the child, “Don’t move. Don’t play with anything. Don’t get up. If I come back in here and you’ve moved…” and the clip ends before the end of her sentence, according to the report.
“She went straight home. She fired the babysitter, told her she needed to leave at that point,” Knight said.
The child’s mom told police her son was abnormally upset when the suspect would come to babysit. She said she didn’t think much of it at the time, but is now worried that there was more abuse going on in their home.
According to the report, after officers left, she later called them back because the babysitter had texted her, saying she would be breaching her employment contract by firing her without two weeks notice.
The victim’s mom told police she did not reply and then the babysitter texted her again and said she better reply.
“These types of investigations can be very complicated and sometimes, they take a while. So, our detectives are right in the middle of doing that,” Knight said.
Police know who the babysitter is, but no arrests have been made. Officials said she could be facing felony child abuse charges.
