A former teacher at a Hilton Head Island childhood education center was arrested on accusations of physically abusing a 2-year-old developmentally delayed student in the classroom, according to police.
Laurel Beck Wall, 46, of Bluffton, was charged with unlawful neglect of a child and two counts of cruelty to children, inmate records show. She turned herself in Wednesday morning after a police interview in late March where police showed her the school’s footage of her allegedly assaulting the young boy, according to a Beaufort County Sheriff’s Office incident report.
Wall primarily ran a classroom of about seven students between 2 and 3 years old at The Children’s Center nonprofit on north-end Hilton Head, the facility’s executive director told police. She was fired March 5 after the director viewed video recordings of Wall allegedly slapping the 2-year-old boy, “stomp(ing)” on his ankle and dragging him by the arms across the classroom, according to the report and a statement from the childcare center. Wall then allegedly pushed the boy to the ground, causing his head to “snap back” into a wooden cabinet against the wall, the report’s account of the footage reads. She allegedly grabbed the child by his arms, jerking him away from the wall before “appearing to shove (him) backwards against the wall in a seated position,” the report says…