A Florida special education teacher is behind bars for putting an autistic toddler in a headlock with her legs while reading to the other children in her classroom.
Florida special education teacher caught by aide
An aide in 59-year-old Vilma Otero’s classroom at Forest Lake Elementary School was preparing an activity on August 23 when she heard the three-year-old boy crying and observed the teacher restraining the boy in a “chokehold,” with her feet.
A photo captured by the aide depicts Otero, seated on a stool reading to the other children as the boy lies beneath her legs in the grip.
The boy’s face was red from screaming and crying as he struggled to escape the teacher’s unconventional hold, the aide reported to police.
They child told police, who noticed his neck was red during the interview, that he “got in trouble at school” and Otero “hurt” him as a punishment.
Special education teacher arrested
Otero, who has been teaching for 36 years with a focus on special needs children, confessed that her punishment was not protocol, and the standard practice was take poorly behaving children out of the classroom during an incident.
She did however, deny the teacher’s aide’s account of the events, despite the photographic evidence. Otero was arrested and has been hit with a felony charge for child abuse.
In another incident, a Florida day care bus driver allegedly left a young girl inside a hot vehicle for over an hour.
49-year-old Barbra Ledbetter also lied to her employer about checking the bus for stray children, and the girl had to pound on a window to be set free.
On Monday, Ledbetter reportedly left a six-year-old girl asleep in the back of the “very hot” bus belonging to the All About Kidz daycare, and the child had “trouble breathing” when she woke.
Florida bus driver charged with child abuse
“Through DCF’s investigation and my own investigation, it was determined [the child] was left sleeping on a daycare bus, which was turned off and unattended, for a period of one hour and two minutes in the parking lot of All About Kidz,” the arrest report stated.
Video surveillance showed that Ledbetter “did not check the bus” after arriving to the day care and letting the kids off, though she lied on the daycare’s log saying she did.
“Her job duty requires her to physically go to the back of the bus and visually check the seats, which she did not do,” police mentioned. “She then signed a log stating she checked the bus.”
According to the report, a parent of a child attending the daycare heard the girl “banging on a window” and saw her inside the bus while walking through the day care parking lot.
Ledbetter is now looking at a third-degree felony charge of child neglect without causing great bodily harm, for alleged “failure or omission” to do her job and make sure the bus was empty.
Ledbetter posted a $2,500 bond on Thursday to secure her release from Seminole County Jail.
Bus driver gets slap on the wrist for running over retired teacher
In a separate incident, an Ohio bus driver who hit and killed an 87-year-old retired schoolteacher while driving on a suspended license will not serve jail time.
Hamilton County Municipal Court Judge Samantha Silverstein sentenced Deon Willis, 47, to five years probation, 1,000 hours of community service, and a five-year driver’s license suspension on Monday.
Willis pleaded guilty to a vehicular homicide charge in July for running over Beverly Kinney while she was walking on a crosswalk in January.
Willis “was found to be operating with a suspended driver’s license status,” when he hit Kinney while taking a right turn.
Charged on May 17, Willis was terminated from his job effective June 10 for “failure to follow Metro’s Revised Mandatory Turning Procedures which resulted in a preventable pedestrian accident on January 11, 2024.”
The judge sentenced Willis to 1,000 hours of community service because Kinney was a volunteer at several local organizations, that “are constantly writing to this court that they need community service hours.”
“And I know this seems like a very light sanction, but I want you to do this and think of her and think of her family every time you work one of those hours … So, I want you to do these hours and think about her every single time you do it, and give back to the community in the way that she did,” Silverstein said.
Kinney’s family members are not happy about the light sentence and are planning to sue Willis and his former employer.
“Beverly’s life was worth so much more than this lightweight punishment, and Beverly’s family feels strongly that the full sentence should be imposed to protect the public from Willis’s dangerous driving,” said a statement from her family’s lawyers.
“However, with Willis’s liability for the accident established by his guilty plea, our firm is eagerly preparing for the civil trial. We look forward to holding Southwest Ohio Regional Transit Authority (SORTA) and Deon Willis accountable for their actions and making Cincinnati safer for all residents.”
