In order to keep the children in a care facility in the US state of Mississippi under control, five teachers scare the little ones. Video footage of it caused horror online. Now the five women must face charges - and possibly a prison sentence.
Five teachers face jail time for scaring toddlers with masks from the horror film "Scream" at a Mississippi daycare center. As US media reports, the five women between the ages of 21 and 44 have been accused of child abuse and failure to provide assistance.
A total of three video recordings from the "Lil Blessings" facility in the city of Hamilton had caused horror on social media. They show how the masked teachers ask with a raised voice: "Have you been mad? Do I have to take you outside?". In the clips, individual children can also be heard screaming and crying in fear.
The educators apparently understood the procedure as a legitimate educational measure. In one of the videos, a teacher tells a masked colleague that the "monster" should spare the good children. "You'd better be good!", can be heard. Even while the children are eating, a masked teacher sneaks around them - apparently so that the children can stay seated at the table.
The videos went viral earlier this month, with footage from September and October, according to the Associated Press. "I can't believe they are terrorizing the kids like this," wrote one shocked woman on Facebook. "That's just disgusting." Only the public outcry triggered by the recordings drew the attention of the US judicial authorities to the conditions in the daycare center.
Many parents of the children were apparently surprised by the conditions in the facility. "The District Attorney met with the parents of the children involved in the incident and provided guidance on the potential criminal penalties that the law would allow in this case," Monroe County Sheriff Kevin Cook said in a statement. "I have to admit that it was very difficult for me as a father to look at these recordings."
The manager of the facility, Sheila Sanders, told the "Monroe Journal" when asked that she did not know what was going on in her house during the care hours. "These people are no longer working for us," she said. "I don't condone that and never have."
In the "Scream" film series, a masked serial killer roams a small US town, gradually massacring people seemingly at random. In a way, the mask from the film has found its way into pop culture. Especially on Halloween, many older children and young people put on such masks to scare their fellow human beings.
