Rochester day care worker used pizza cutter to slash toddler's face, charges state
ROCHESTER, Minn. — A 26-year-old Pipestone woman is in custody and facing criminal charges after allegedly attacking a toddler with a pizza cutter Thursday inside a Rochester day care center.
The Olmsted County Attorney's Office says the suspect is charged with one felony count of third-degree assault, a felony count of making terroristic threats and two misdemeanor counts of fifth-degree assault.
The criminal complaint states Rochester police officers were called to the KinderCare off Greenview Place Southwest just before 3 p.m. on a report of a fight between two employees.
The officers arrived to find an employee holding her bloody child, less than 2 years old. The child had a "large laceration" on their cheek, the complaint states.
The employee told the officers she got into an argument with the suspect about her work duties. The complaint states the center's assistant director told police she witnessed the argument, then helped separate the women after the suspect allegedly pulled the employee's shirt over her head.
The employee and other witnesses said the suspect then grabbed a pizza cutter and threatened the employee with it, the complaint states. The employee said the suspect then yelled, "If I can't cut you, I'll cut your kids," referring to the employee's children, who attend the day care center.
The suspect then allegedly went into the center's infant room and "began swinging the pizza cutter" at the employee's child who was sitting on the floor, slashing their face, the complaint states.
The suspect fled with a stroller carrying her own two children before calling the center soon after from a nearby gas station. The complaint states the officers went and interviewed her, and she told them the employee had been "bossing her around all day" and eventually "swung on" her, leading the suspect to fight back.
Police say the suspect admitted to assaulting the child with the pizza cutter, claiming the employee had first threatened to harm her children, the complaint states. Police say the suspect never elaborated on those alleged threats.
She is currently being held in the Olmsted County Adult Detention Center. If convicted, she faces up to five years in prison.