In Spokane, Washington, a 14-month-old child named Jayceon Barnes sustained multiple bite injuries while attending an Early Head Start daycare program. His parents, Teayana Fletcher and Anthony Barnes, discovered the injuries upon picking him up and immediately sought medical attention.

Fletcher expressed her concerns on social media, alleging that Jayceon had been repeatedly injured by another child in the class over a two-week period. She criticized the daycare staff for inadequate supervision, stating, "They ALLOWED that baby to bite my son SEVEN times and they’re trying to cover their [expletive] about what really went down."

The parents reported the incident to the Washington State Department of Children, Youth, and Families, prompting an investigation into the daycare's practices. A department spokesperson confirmed that they are looking into whether the situation constitutes child abuse or neglect under state law.

The Community Colleges of Spokane, which operates the Early Head Start program, declined to comment due to the ongoing investigation. This incident has sparked a broader discussion about daycare safety and the importance of vigilant supervision to prevent harm to children.

Fletcher and Barnes are seeking accountability and improvements in childcare standards to ensure such incidents do not recur, emphasizing the need for parents to be vigilant and proactive in assessing the safety of daycare environments.

Social media dilemma

"People are trying to get us arrested, my phone has not stopped ringing for the past 3 days,"

Since the incident and the subsequent legal action which the family took against the daycare, they have been dealing with a wave of misinformation claiming they child was abandoned and parents incognito, using their son's photo, an act which needs to be criminalized with high fines and long term jail time, using it to trap people who tend to be gullible into mass sharing and allowing the embedded hashtag to gain bot strength.

These misleading posts have appeared in locations as varied as Bower County, Virginia; Norfolk, Michigan; Coeur d'Alene; Tacoma; and even as far as Sydney, Australia. The false claims have led to threats against the family from arrest to beating. This is the real danger of this kinda activity. Quit it!

The family reached out to local police and the FBI, but prosecuting those responsible for the misinformation is challenging due to the difficulty in tracing the source of the posts. Reporting fake posts to the social media platform may be the best course of action.

Proper method to post your kids photos online to deter abuse

• Place a big watermark on every image. There are free apps available to do this action quickly.
• Write the facts of an incident or illness on the image, especially across the face

How to be vigilant at social media spaces

Fake news should be very obvious yet there are really gullible folks who just want to thrive on rage, pity or joy, and this leads them to follow the given instructions in any lying post with the images that trigger their simple minds.

Rule of thumb to spot fake sensational news:

• If there is no factual name - it's a lie
• if there is no factual location - it's a lie
• if there is no factual report by a credible source - it's a lie