Tuesday

Worker Charged in Day Care Fire

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A 22-year-old woman will face at least one felony charge after a fire at her west Houston day care last week claimed the lives of four toddlers and injured three others.

Jessica Rene Tata is charged with reckless injury to a child involving serious bodily injury, according to the Harris County District Attorney’s Office. The charge could be upgraded and more charges could be filed, officials said.

Tata operated a home-based day care where seven children were under her supervision when a fire broke out on Thursday afternoon. A law enforcement source said Tata had left the children and had gone to a store when the blaze began.
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Special thanks to TC for Submitting this tragic story. To read the rest, please click the link.

13 comments:

Just My Two Cents Just Now said...

Omigosh!! This article is so tragic it made me cry. Those poor four children who died! I pray that their families get through this okay. I can't even imagine what they must be going through right now!! :(
The daycare provider should have the book thrown at her...again and again. How dare she leave and go to the store while seven children are left unattended in her home. A fire, an intruder, etc...no child should EVER be left unsupervised. This woman had an obligation to those families. Unfortunately, she failed big time and I hope that justice is swift and firm.
God Bless the children who were injured. I hope they recover fully from this tragedy.

Just My Two Cents Just Now said...

Let's ALl keep our fingers crossed that more than one felony charge is filed. I hope in the coming days that more charges are filed and that she is prosecuted to the fullest.
Is it me or in this photo does her "remorse" look fake???

TC said...

The lady has escaped to Nigeria.

I can not believe she left those kids ALONE to go shopping.

MissMannah said...

I hope this article is used as an example for anyone going into the childcare field so they'll know just how critical it is for children to have CONSTANT supervision.

Not even getting to the tragedy of the children who died and were seriously injured, I was already disgusted by this woman when I saw she had 7 children in her daycare. I don't know about Texas but that is way over the legal limit here!

My heart goes out to the families of those poor babies.

Just My Two Cents Just Now said...

TC..she REALLY escaped to Nigeria?? What the fu#@?????????????????????

unbelievable said...

excuse my language, but Holy Crapfuck. Jesus Christ on the Cross, where do these losers come from??????

TC said...

Yes, unfortunately she did Mytwocents. There is an extradition treaty though so if they cross their T's and dot their I's they can bring her sorry butt back.....if they can find her

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/metropolitan/7452300.html

On Sunday, after three days of calls between arson investigators and prosecutors, one charge of reckless injury to a child was filed against Tata. But by then, Tata, a U.S. citizen born in Harris County, had already left the country. She boarded a plane to Nigeria in Dallas, one day earlier.

The Houston Fire Department on Monday said they had approached prosecutors by Saturday with evidence that Tata was negligent. That evidence, they said, included a Target video showing Tata was shopping when the fire broke out and receipts from her purchases at the store.

Each time, HFD Executive Assistant Chief Richard Galvan said they were told to continue investigating because their evidence did not rule out the possibility that another staffer or adult was at the day care at the time of the fire. If there was another adult, then that person could have been held liable and been charged.

Galvan also told the Chronicle this week that arson investigator Ruben Hernandez notified assistant district attorney Steve Baldassano on Friday that he had a tip that Tata was preparing to leave the country and was a flight risk.

Galvan said the prosecutor's reaction was to instruct them to get more evidence.

If anyone wants to keep up to date on this you can keep checking www.chron.com that's the link the local (Houston) paper and it will have stories about it. They do sometimes update the individual articles but other times they just write a new one

TC said...

MissMannah I believe she was one over ratio. I think the ratio is 1 adult to 6 kids.

I'm not too familiar with home daycare rules, I worked in center based day cares and the rules and regulations are a lot stricter.

Does this moniker make my butt look big? said...

In California it is 1 to 6 however, you can actually have 8 if two of them are school age(Kindergarten & up) part-timers.
I hope they bring her back and jail her...then I hope the parents pay the bail and wait for her sorry arse outside the jail!!

NJnannyC said...

UGH is all I can say UGH

Just My Two Cents Just Now said...

Thank you TC for doing your homework. The add'l info was great. I am curious to know if there was another adult in the home while Ms. Thang went to Target. What could she have needed that couldn't wait until after her daycare was closed for the day? If there was no adult in the home and the children were left alone, that is absolutely not acceptable to me. However, if there were another adult left to supervise the seven children, I wonder where he or she was. This would change the dynamics of this story. The fact that the daycare owner fled to Nigeria however screams GUILTY GUILTY GUILTY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

BLB fan said...

The problem is that this woman obviously doesn't see the difference in her actions, being from a 3rd world country. She thinks in America it's ok to go out and leave children alone and get paid for doing it.

BLB: great idea! If I were one of those parents, I would certainly be waiting outside to kill her.

Tales from the (Nanny)Hood said...

BLB Fan, here's a quote from TC's posts above:

"But by then, Tata, a U.S. citizen born in Harris County, had already left the country."

She's not from a 3rd world country, she's from the US. She's a lazy excuse for a human being from right here in Texas.

And I doubt that many 3rd world people would just walk away from children they were supposed to be caring for in any case - they probably have more sense and less of a "Gotta have it now, damn the consequences." mentality than many of us Americans have..