SCHERTZ, Texas – A Schertz daycare worker will not be criminally charged for assault despite school bus surveillance video that showed her slap a 13-year-old girl with a severe intellectual disability and then drag her across the floor of the bus earlier this year.
Lori Doores, 55, had been under investigation since shortly after the April 27 incident on board a Schertz-Cibolo-Universal City Independent School District bus.
A nearly two-minute video clip obtained by KSAT Investigates shows Doores climb on board the bus just after 5 p.m. and tell the child to get up “right now” and that she is going to “get into trouble.”
After Doores repeatedly slaps herself on her wrist, Jaylyn, who has 1p36 deletion syndrome and was recently diagnosed as being autistic, reaches for Doores twice.
The footage then shows Doores use her right hand to slap Jaylyn in the face before telling her, “You don’t do that to me, ‘cuz I’ll hit you back, right?”
Moments later, with Jaylyn now seated near the steps to exit the bus, Doores grabs the girl by her left ankle and pulls her toward the steps.
Jaylyn then exits the bus and walks barefoot across the pavement to the daycare, Mary’s Little Lambs in the 1200 block of Oak Street, while holding Doores’ hand.
“There was no need for her to be taken off the bus that way. If they couldn’t handle her or get her off the bus, they should have reached out to me,” said Jaylyn’s mother, Marisela Gutierrez.
Jaylyn’s chromosome disorder causes her to be unable to speak and she also has seizures as a result of it.
Through an email, Doores declined to comment for this story.
Video prompts investigation into day care
Gutierrez said she was contacted by SCUCISD’s transportation department after the incident, and was allowed to watch the footage.
An SCUCISD spokeswoman confirmed this week that the bus monitor onboard during the incident reported what happened to her immediate supervisor.
Gutierrez said after watching the footage she reported Doores to Schertz Police and to state child care investigators.
A subsequent investigation conducted by the Texas Health and Human Services Commission on April 28, a day after the incident, found four deficiencies at the day care, all related to Doores’ actions.
The investigation found that the facility’s director was not holding caregivers accountable when they did not adhere to appropriate discipline and guidance standards.
The day care was also cited for Doores not showing self-control and for using harsh and inappropriate language toward a child with special needs.
The fourth deficiency states that Doores struck the child in the face with an open hand and that her decision to grab the child’s ankle to try to get her off the bus could have resulted in serious injury, HHSC records show.
Mary’s Little Lambs was also cited in late January 2020 after a caregiver wrapped her arm around a child’s neck while the child was suffering a tantrum, state records show.
A spokeswoman for HHSC confirmed this week Mary’s Little Lambs is now on a voluntary plan of action that is expected to last until January 2023.
Court rejects misdemeanor charge
Schertz police officials this week confirmed Doores will not be criminally charged for the incident.
A detective assigned to the case noted she believed that Doores had made contact with Jaylyn’s face but the case could only be filed as a Class C misdemeanor assault by contact, since no apparent bodily injury occurred.
Had Jaylyn suffered an injury, the case could have been filed as felony injury to a disabled person.
The misdemeanor case was forwarded by Schertz PD to municipal court, which then rejected it, a Schertz city official confirmed this week.
Barbara Niemietz, the director of Mary’s Little Lambs, told KSAT Investigates via telephone this week that Doores resigned earlier this year after being moved away from children and forced to work kitchen duty.
Doores had worked at the facility for three years, Niemietz said.
Niemietz said Jaylyn attended the day care for nine years.
“She’s a handful,” said Niemietz, who added that she “will never take a handicap again.”
“Maybe she didn’t know there was cameras, but to do it in the open in front of two people, what was being done when nobody was watching?” said Gutierrez, referring to Doores. “That’s what breaks me every night, still to this day, the past four months. I think about it: what was she enduring inside the day care?”
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