In the Davis household, two toddlers live in a world of dolls and playtime, and their parents Tyler and Arianna try their hardest to keep it that way.
Recently Tyler and Adrianna learned, though, even the best of parents can’t always prevent bad things from happening to their innocent children.
A slap from a complete stranger across their daughter’s face at a 24 Hour Fitness ended up on the social media app Snapchat.
“My heart just sinks,” Arianna said.
It happened in December to the twins, both 18 months old at the time. Tyler was close by, working out at the 24 Hour Fitness on West Grand Parkway South after he dropped off the girls at the in-house daycare.
A few days later, he got a call from the manager after another employee reported the Snapchat incident.
“He wanted us to know that one of my daughters had been slapped and it appears that one of the employees had been horse playing with the girls,” Tyler said.
An employee at the gym gave the video to the family.
In the video captured from inside the daycare, you can see one woman cradling one of the girls and shaking her, flailing the girl’s body.
Then at one point, both girls are spun in circles until they are so dizzy they fall down, while the women laughed at them.
It doesn’t stop there.
“This one’s walking over and this one is just gonna slap her on the back of her head and make her fall down,” Arianna said as she points to her computer screen displaying the footage.
The Davis’ grapple with how to feel about their children being exploited for so many to see.
“Kind of an anger, but then I guess the Christian side of me just said, ‘You know, we have all made a mistake, we’ve all done something wrong. I need to find a way to forgive these people for what they’ve done,’” Tyler said.
A 24 Hour Fitness spokesperson did confirm they fired the two employees. They sent KHOU this statement:
“At 24 Hour Fitness, we take matters of this nature seriously. Our members and team members’ safety and security are top priorities for us, and our employee training includes protocols for safeguarding member and team member safety. Once we learned about the incident that took place in the Kids Club of our club located at 5270 West Grand Parkway South, Richmond, Texas, we took immediate action. We informed the parents of the child about the incident, as well as local law enforcement. The employees involved in the incident are no longer with the company. Because this was a personnel matter and for the privacy of those involved, we don’t publically discuss details.”
The Fort Bend County Sheriff’s Office has opened up an investigation and plans to hand it over to the district attorney’s office.
“I think the two women that are involved need to be prosecuted and put in jail just due to their age at the time,” said Tyler. “These people are possibly still out there doing this to other people’s kids.”