Sickening video emerged this week of an employee at an autism center repeatedly assaulting a three-year-old boy during her first unsupervised shift at an autism center in Minnesota.
Arianna Williams, 25, has been charged with malicious punishment of a child after disturbing video footage recorded from inside the Sunrise Autism Center in Burnsville, a city about 15 miles south of Minneapolis, showed her suddenly grab the child by his shoulder and push him to the floor as he casually walked by, news station WCCO reported Thursday.
When he gets up, she shoves him down again and he lands on his back with a thud, causing the child to scream, the clip shows. Moments later, Williams can be seen using both of her hands to lift the boy into the air, before violently throwing him to the ground.
According to charging documents, the incident took place on the first day Williams was allowed to be with children unsupervised, CBS reports.
Sunrise Autism Center says they fired the teacher immediately and called police.
After being fired, investigators say Williams sent a text to a co-worker, reading in part, “I’d never purposely hurt anyone I was just having a really bad start to the week.”
Farhiya, a Somali-American, told WCCO that her son was diagnosed with autism last year and that she had enrolled him at the center for speech and occupational therapy. He had only been attending for a week before the assault took place, she added.
She said she cried and screamed when she first saw the footage.
In a statement, Sunrise Autism Center said its team is “cooperating with the investigation and their priority remains the safety and wellbeing of our clients.”
Williams is scheduled to next appear in court on June 20.