Dougherty DA: No child abuse found in Byne Child Development Center video

ALBANY — Dougherty County District Attorney Greg Edwards said Friday that a controversial incident at Byne Child Development Center that was captured on video did not constitute criminal wrongdoing.

In a statement released Friday evening through the Albany Police Department, the DA said he and his staff reviewed the Nov. 2 incident and determined that there was no criminal intent on the part of the Byne CDC employee who, he noted, no longer works at the center.

According to the DA’s statement, the Byne CDC video footage, shows children interacting with each other and with center employees. The conduct that has been alluded to on social media by concerned citizens focused on physical contact with several of the children and involved the center employee directing and correcting children, Edwards said.

“Any and all allegations of crime in our community are taken very seriously by this office, never more so than when they involve the children of our community, who are among the most vulnerable in our society,” he said. “When the November 2nd incident first came to light on social media, I immediately directed a team of my prosecutors to review the video footage of the incident.

“They reviewed the video, as did I, to determine if the legal elements of child abuse, as defined by the law, were present.”

Edwards said he has to consider “whether a suspect has criminal intent and then acts upon that intent to determine if a crime was actually committed. This applies to citizens suspected of wrongdoing.”

Edwards said neither he nor his staff found criminal intent.

“The findings of my team were unanimous: After having thoroughly reviewed the facts of the incident and the totality of the circumstances, they did not find criminal intent on the part of the child development employee in question, and neither do I,” he said.

Edwards said the video depicts children interacting with one another, including horseplay, and a child dropping food on the floor. The video includes one employee physically directing a child to pick up the food he dropped on the floor, and removing a child from a table setting, and placing her hand on a child’s head to encourage the child to lay down, he said.

The prosecutor said the individual no longer works at the center.

Edwards called the incident “a learning opportunity for all citizens in our community, and when a potential crime is observed, report it to your local law enforcement authorities. The District Attorney’s Office of Dougherty County stands ready to prosecute all crimes in our jurisdiction. We owe that to the citizens of our community who have placed their trust in us!”