HOUSTON – When 4-year-old Zayne came home with a red face and bruises following a recent visit to his longtime day care, the Starbright Learning Center, his mother stood up for him.
Maria Solis, a worker at the day care, was arrested and charged with injury to a child. She is accused of hitting Zayne.
"You hear about these things happening, but you never expect it to happen to you," Jessica Touchstone, Zayne's mother, said.
Jessica says Zayne has been going to the day care for two years and never had a problem there until last week.
She says after picking Zayne up, she saw he was visibly shaken and covering his left cheek as they were leaving.
"He moved his hand off his face, for the first time and I looked and there's a giant hand-print plain as day across his face," Jessica said.
Jessica went back inside the day care to confront the director along with Solis, who she says admitted to hitting her child for bad behavior.
"I was like, I looked at her and told her, she had no right to put her hand on my kid," Jessica said.
"It's very serious as you can imagine, any parent would be concerned and upset with it. And it is a felony crime," Lt. Danny Garza, Precinct 4 Harris County Sheriff's Office, said.
Despite the arrest, Jessica says Zayne will not return to Starbright anytime soon, and if she had it her way, neither is Solis.
"I want make sure she's never allowed to be around children again. Who's to say she hasn't done this before and it hadn't been reported," Jessica said.