Georgia police announced that two preschool teachers in the metro Atlanta area were arrested this week on allegations of child cruelty that was captured on a livestream of a classroom, according to CNN.
Roswell police said in a statement that Zeina Alostwani and Soriana Briceno, former teachers at Parker-Chase Preschool in Roswell, were arrested and charged on Monday, June 6, with first-degree child cruelty.
The alleged physical contact between the preschool teachers and young students, ages 3 and 2, occurred on Thursday and was seen by a parent monitoring the classroom livestream, cops said.
Video shows preschool teachers committing child abuse
According to police, that parent reported logging onto the camera system and seeing concerning physical contact between Briceno and Alostwani against several kids in the classroom.
The alarming video, which is slightly more than a minute long, was provided to NBC News on Wednesday by Georgia police. The video shows several children sitting around a circular rug. It appears to record one teacher stepping on a kid's hand for several seconds and then kneeing a second child in the back.
The video also appears to show a second teacher, who is on all fours, getting extremely close to a kid's face and then poking the child's forehead with a finger. The toddler who was poked in the forehead is the same child who was kneed in the back only moments earlier by the first teacher.
It was not clear on Wednesday afternoon whether Briceno or the 40-year-old Alostwani had retained attorneys. The two teachers could not be immediately reached for comment and their relatives were also not available.
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Preschool teachers dismissed after child abuse allegations
Endeavor Schools, the company that oversees the preschool, said that the teachers on the video have been dismissed. They issued a statement regarding the matter, saying "We were shocked and disappointed to learn that teachers in the Parker-Chase Pre-Primary B classroom used inappropriate disciplinary actions with children."
The company added that the teachers in question were immediately removed from the classroom. The company said that they reported this matter to their licensing agency and Children's Protective Services and are cooperating fully with the authorities, who have informed them that criminal charges are being pursued.
While the company is extremely grateful that the children are well, they said that they take this matter seriously, and their investigation is still ongoing. The company said that they expect their staff to adhere to the highest standards of care, and any failure to do so will not be tolerated.
Atlanta news outlet WXIA reported that Gloria Barghi, a mom of one of the preschoolers, said intuition prompted her to look in on the classroom livestream from an app on her phone. Barghi said that she pulled up the app and picked it up right when the lead teacher was assaulting the first victim.
Barghi and her husband, Brant Duncan, immediately raced to the preschool to check on their son if he was alright. The couple demanded to see the entire video of what they had just seen live, according to the station.
