A three-year-old was left requiring stitches after her teacher at a preschool violently threw her against a cabinet, causing her head to split open. The incident, which unfolded at a classroom in front of all the other students at the Brighter Day Care and Preschool in north St. Louis County, Missouri, on Friday, February 1, has left parents in shock.

According to the Daily Mail, the teacher violently assaulted the child without provocation and then sent a note to the victim's parents suggesting she had sustained the injuries on her head after she fell. However, unbeknownst to the teacher, the horrific attack was captured on a surveillance camera installed in the classroom.

Five days after the attack, a relative of the young child recorded a video of it off a surveillance monitor with her phone that showed how the child got hurt. In the video, the teacher can first be seen aggressively grabbing the girl's arm, seemingly without reason, as she stood alone by a chair. Then, the teacher drags her and throws her violently against the cabinet, injuring her head.

The injury proved so grievous that an ambulance had to be called to the scene and the victim had to be taken to the hospital for further treatment. She would ultimately require seven stitches to treat the wound. 

Fox2 reported that the family, who have requested anonymity, have hired attorney Jennifer Hansen to represent them. It is unclear if they have filed a lawsuit against the preschool yet, but Hansen expressed concern on how it took close to a week for them to come to the realization that the child's injuries were not because of a fall.

"In no world did this family have any idea that what was called a fall was actually an assault until they came to see that video," she was quoted saying. "One of the more egregious aspects of this case is that the daycare director told the family that she did not watch the surveillance tape until the family was with her."

The teacher responsible for the attack was fired, but Hansen says the action came too late. She said that the daycare could have reviewed the footage of that particular day at any time but that they didn't, and instead, allowed the teacher to continue to work at the facility for an additional five days.

This was not the first such incident of the kind at the facility either, with previous reports indicating that the preschool had had problems in the past as well. In June 2016, inspectors noted that "staff did not have a preventative plan in place" when "(one child was) repeatedly hitting and choking another child."

In March 2016, inspectors wrote a "child fell out of the chair and sustained a left femoral fracture." As recently as May 2018, inspectors said they saw a teacher "slam a child down on the cot" and that another teacher was "holding a child by his wrist, dragging him across the room."

Police are continuing to investigate the incident alongside state child care inspectors.