Page 31 - Florida Sentinel 11-9-18

National
'Toddler Fight Club' Video Goes Viral As Two Day Care Workers Are Charged
12 Killed In California Shooting; Gunman Targeted Bar In Thousand Oaks
It was supposed to be a special day, but instead a 4- year-old’s birthday turned into a day care nightmare that left him with a black eye.
He was pummeled when two workers at the Adventure Learning Center in St. Louis, Mo., allegedly instigated 35 minutes of fighting between 3- and 4-year-olds in aiming to entertain the kids when the facility’s heater broke in 2016.
“He doesn’t understand why his friends were fighting him,” mother Nicole Merseal told the local news station. “He got beat up by his best friend. And it was on his fourth birthday.”
While the workers were fired and arrested at the time for their alleged role in what they dubbed the “toddler fight club,” they were not prose- cuted.
That wasn’t enough for Merseal, who recently shared video of the incident that was shot by her 10-year- old son, who was in the next room and saw his little brother crying after being forced to participate in three fights.
More footage was cap- tured on a surveillance cam- era. Merseal is suing the center, and state prosecutors
Tena Dailey (left) and Mickala Guliford are pictured in 2016 mugshots. Both workers were charged with first-degree endangering the welfare of a child creating a substantial risk.
IAN DAVID LONG
People comforted one another early Thursday near the scene of the shooting in Thousand Oaks, Calif.
have reopened the case.
On Monday, Mickala Guliford, 28, and Tena N. Dailey, 22, were charged with first-degree endangering the welfare of a child creating a substantial risk. They’re scheduled to appear in court on Dec. 3, almost two years to the day since the two “en- couraged and directed the children to engage in fist- fights with each other,” court
documents say.
The video shows small
children, outfitted with big foam “hulk hands,” rolling around on the floor pounding each other. One child sits to the side, wiping his eyes. One of the teachers is jumping up and down, the other egging
them on.
The St. Louis Circuit At-
torney’s Office told KPLR last week that it would reopen the investigation, and the Mis- souri Department of Social Services has also been in touch with Merseal.
The teachers have not commented to the media.
“I am so very thankful that my 10-year-old realized that it was wrong,” Merseal told KPLR of her son’s quick thinking in recording the fight and texting it to her.
But the fallout continues. As they drove to a new day care center after the incident, she said, “He asked me in the car if they were gonna make him fight.”
Political News
An armed man dressed in black opened fire late Wednes- day night inside a crowded country and western dance hall in Thousand Oaks, Calif., killing at least 12 people, in- cluding a sheriff’s deputy who had responded to the scene. The gunman was also dead. The shooter was identified as 28-year-old, Ian David Long.
The shooting came just over a year after 58 people were killed at a country music festival in Las Vegas when a gunman opened fire from a high-rise hotel room. There was an eerie parallel between the two shootings as some of the same people who emerged from the bar, the Borderline Bar & Grill, described having survived the shooting on the
Las Vegas Strip.
Witnesses recalled a
chaotic scene at the bar, which was filled with hundreds of people, many of them college students: A gunman opening fire, first at a security guard, as patrons dropped to the dance floor, hid under tables and broke windows to escape.
The Ventura County sher- iff, Geoff Dean, said there were “multiple other victims of different levels of injuries.” His voice cracking, he identified one victim as Sgt. Ron Helus, who was shot when he entered the building.
Country music was playing in the dimly lit bar when peo- ple first heard gunshots some time before midnight. Some said they had initially mistaken the sounds for firecrackers.
Stacey Abrams Refuses To Concede Georgia Governor's Race, Hoping For Runoff
Democratic candidate Stacey Abrams is not con- ceding the Georgia governor's race to Republican candidate Brian Kemp, arguing that the high stakes contest is too close to call with the possibility of a runoff next month.
Kemp is currently ahead of Abrams by nearly 68,000 votes with 99% of precincts re- porting, according to CNN election results. But he only has 50.4% of the vote. If neither candidate receives 50%, there will be a runoff in early Decem- ber.
"I'm here tonight to tell you votes remain to be counted. There's voices that are waiting to be heard," Abrams, who would be the nation's first black female governor, told supporters early Wednesday morning gathered in Atlanta.
Abrams is reportedly holding off on conceding to see if a runoff is possible.
The campaign cited several specific places in the state that could play a role in a scenario to force the runoff, including
STACEY ABRAMS
three of the state's largest counties that "have reported only a portion of the votes that were submitted by early mail" and four other large counties that "have reported exactly 0 votes by mail," according to the campaign. Together, it said, the seven counties "are expected to return a minimum of 77,000 ballots."
Voters rights issues have taken front and center in the the high-profile gubernatorial race between Kemp, the GOP secretary of state, and Abrams, a state representa- tive.
Democrats have accused Kemp of a conflict of interest as he refused to step away from
his post overseeing state elec- tions while he campaigned for governor.
Last month, a federal judge ruled Georgia election officials had to stop rejecting absentee ballots with voters' signatures that didn't appear to match sig- natures on record.
On Sunday, Kemp's office opened an investigation into the Georgia Democratic Party for what it said was an at- tempted hack of the state's voter registration system, with- out providing proof. Georgia Democrats flatly denied the al- legation.
He dismissed critics alleg- ing that he weaponized state law to suppress the minority vote as "outside agitators."
A lawsuit filed Tuesday in a Georgia federal court by five state voters asked a judge to strip Kemp of his powers over the midterm election -- includ- ing any potential runoffs.
Voters in the Peach State also faced long lines and mal- functioning machines during Tuesday's vote.
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