Video shows what happened inside alleged day care 'Fight Club'

Friday, September 25, 2015
Video shows what happened inside alleged day care 'Fight Club'
Parents filed a lawsuit against a Conroe day care after they say a worker encouraged young children to fight on the playground.

HOUSTON -- A mother filed a lawsuit against her son's day care after she says a teacher encouraged him to fight with another child and then filmed it on her cellphone.

Ashlee Minchew is the teacher accused of filming the video at Children's Universe of Lake Conroe last year. Minchew told Eyewitness News she did not shoot the video; she leaked it because she was angry about being fired for a separate incident.

"And I wish I could just run to parents and be like, 'Look, it wasn't me filming! I'm just the one who chose to leak it," Minchew said. "I'm the whistleblower."

The lawsuit filed Thursday does not name Minchew or any other former teachers. Attorney Greg Fibich represents the mother of one of the children fighting in the video.

"It's just shocking that this could happen," Fibich said. "She did a lot of research about this facility and thought that her children were in safe hands."

Brooke Leax owns Children's Universe of Lake Conroe and she released a statement saying: "At the present time, we have not been made aware of any lawsuit. The incident in question occurred close to a year ago and was first reported to the authorities by myself and our director. We cooperated 100 percent in the investigation, which was closed by the police and Texas Department of Family and Protective Services several weeks later. The employee in question had been terminated for unrelated reasons prior to the initial report."

Minchew was a suspect in the Montgomery County Sheriff's Office investigation, but the District Attorney's Office did not accept any charges. She works as a nanny now and hopes to get back into a classroom one day.

"I just liked day care," Minchew said. "I was fooled."

The parents of at least one child involved in the fight video want to hold the day care accountable.

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