Connecticut teacher arrested, accused of tossing 2-year-old into wall

A teacher at a Connecticut daycare and early learning center is facing charges after, authorities say, she tossed a 2-year-old into a wall earlier this year.

Middletown police said they received a complaint on January 12 that a 2-year-old was assaulted by a teacher at Town and Country Early Learning Center. According to police, the people making the report were notified by the facility of the alleged incident and shown surveillance video. The complainants requested at police headquarters that the teacher, later identified as 47-year-old Kristie Kovarcik of Haddam, Conn., be arrested. 

According to police, detectives investigating the incident obtained surveillance video from the Middletown facility that showed “Kovarcik picked up the minor child and tossed the child to the side.”

“The child’s head then struck a nearby wall causing a minor contusion above his/her right eye,” police said. “The director of the facility heard a commotion and pulled up the surveillance camera for Kovarcik’s room. She witnessed Kovarcik toss the child aside and heard the child’s head strike the wall.”

According to police, the director then went into the room and removed the child, reporting the incident to both the parents and the state’s Department of Children and Families.

An arrest warrant for Kovarcik charging her with risk of injury to a minor and reckless endangerment second degree was obtained by police, and the department said the 47-year-old turned herself in to authorities on Feb. 26. 

She is scheduled to appear in Middletown Court on March 11. 

Police said that the Town and Country facility fired Kovarcik  as a result of the alleged incident.