A mother could not hold back tears when she saw a video of what you might call a "fight club" at her children's daycare.
It was organized by teachers.
A ten-year old took video of the fight club. He's with older kids in the next room.
His little brother is crying after three fights. One teacher is excited, while the other teacher puts hulk fists on preschoolers.
Mother Nicole Merseal cannot watch without crying: "He doesn't understand why his friends were fighting him, why he was beat up by his best friends, and it was on his 4th birthday."
The fight begins, the kids fall, a teacher jumps in the air in excitement. The only person who tries breaking it up is another preschooler, but he cannot stop one child from pounding the other's head into the floor.
Merseal believes it only stopped because her older son texted her video.
She called the director to stop it.
Nicole Merseal, Mother: "He said the daycare was making them fight, not helping them."
Daycare cameras recorded at least 30 minutes, fight after fight. Merseal says the video can be monitored by staff.
Though it happened nearly two years ago, Merseal doesn't think enough was done.
Nicole Merseal, Mother: "I want them to be held accountable and I don't want this to happen to any other child."
A police report says the director immediately fired both teachers and called the child abuse hotline.
The St. Louis Circuit Attorney's office declined to prosecute.
Both teachers had no comment.
State regulators substantiated the complaint but Adventure Learning Center continued operating normally, but with increased inspections.
Merseal wonders about training, pointing to how a teacher noticed her son crying that day in 2016. "In the video, he is wiping his face over and over again. The daycare worker, you see her walk over to him and tell him, you know, 'you are fine' and pat him on the back and then walk and start another fight with other kinds."
She says now she struggles making her son realize fighting at daycare is not really widely accepted.
Nicole Merseal, Mother: "When we chose a new daycare for him and he started going he asked me in the car if they were going to make him fight."
The attorney's office said it did not prosecute the teachers because there was not enough evidence that any laws were broken.
