BALTIMORE COUNTY, Md. — It was shocking enough for parents in Howard County to learn a man entrusted to care for their kids was accused of abusing a young girl for years. But now they're learning - that same employee was already accused of the same thing, three years ago in Baltimore County. And the people who could have pursued the case chose instead to do nothing.
At Glenwood Country Day School in Woodbine, an 11 year-old girl says Dameon Patterson started sexually abusing her when she was nine. After two years, she reported the alleged abuse, and Patterson was arrested in early January.
He was let out on bail. But less than two weeks later, he was arrested again. But this time, it was for accusations from 2021. At that time, Patterson worked at another daycare in Baltimore County, Padonia Park Child Centers.
There, a nine year-old girl says she was touched inappropriately by Patterson. She told her parents. Social Services and the police got involved. The case was referred to the State's Attorney's office, but Patterson was never charged.
At least, not until after he was charged in Howard County in 2024. Howard County Police tell us it was their detectives who, after arresting him in January, learned that Patterson had been under investigation in Baltimore County in 2021 and reached out to BCPD, leading to his arrest there.
Why wasn’t he charged back in 2021? That's what we're trying to find out. We called Baltimore County State's Attorney Scott Shellenberger's office. We were told he was busy all day, but wouldn't be able to comment anyway because it's pending litigation.
But we passed along this question: What is his message is to parents who might now be hesitant to report their children's abuse allegations because they fear it might just be a waste of their time? We are awaiting a response.
We also want to know, did Glenwood Country Day School do a reference check before hiring him? Since he wasn’t formally charged then, it wouldn’t have shown up on a background check. But if they had called Padonia Park Child Centers, would they have known about the accusations?
Neither school is answering questions. The Maryland Department of Education says child care facilities are not required to do reference checks on employees.
Glenwood is still shut down; the state issued an emergency suspension on January 5, requiring the school to stop providing care immediately, because it failed to notify the state Department of Education Office of Child Care that one of its employees was being criminally investigated. Nothing on the school's website indicates that it's not in operation.
We heard from a mom this week who already paid for her kid to attend summer camp at Glenwood like he did last year. She says the school never contacted her about the accused abuse. She had no idea whether her kid had been in contact with him, until after she asked him.
She found out about it on the news. She's waiting for a refund for summer camp.
We also turned to Adam Rosenberg from LifeBridge Health's Center for Hope to ask what parents, and child care facilities need to know to protect kids. We asked, do child predators seek out places of employment in places like preschools and day cares where children are?
“Absolutely, I mean, look if you're gonna go fishing, you want to go to a fishing pond where there's a lot of fish,” Rosenberg said.
But he says, there's things day cares and schools can do to signal to potential abusers - you can't get away with that here.
“If you create an environment where no child is left alone, where all contact is interruptable, all contact is observable, there's constant supervision, and there's constant education around what's appropriate and what's not appropriate, that predator will feel less comfortable being able to be successful there."
In the Baltimore County case, charging documents say the victim said the touching happened "4 times a day, every day she was there,” and "the victim does not believe anyone else could see Dameon touching her." The girl told investigators it happened after her other teacher left for the day, while other kids were busy playing, and would stop right before she was supposed to get picked up by a parent.
“National studies have shown historically that less than 3% of children are making it up. So if a child is saying that something happened, odds are that something happened," Rosenberg said.
Rosenberg says it’s important for parents to have conversations with their kids about abuse. He wants to “normalize child safety and child protection just as normalizing other protective measures like wearing a helmet or putting on your seatbelt. We don’t want to become overly protective to the point that kids are looking and waiting for this to happen to them, but we want to be able to make sure that in the event of a fire, a kid knows how to get out. In the event of an active school shooter situation now, kids know how to get out. In the incident of abuse, a kid needs to know how to respond to it, and we as adults need to know how to prepare for that as well.”
But he says it’s even more important for child care facilities to be safe spaces for kids.
“And institutions can do a lot. They should be doing regular training for all their employees, to understand what the mandated reporting obligations are. They should be doing regular training for their employees to let them know what is abuse and what is not abuse. There should be supervision of the employees there. No employee at any child care facility should ever be alone with a child in a space that is not interruptable, and is not observable. And i think if any organization follows that rule of three, that contact with children should be appropriate, observable, and interruptable then we’ve greatly reduced the possibility of something happening to a kid.”
For more information on choosing the best child care for your kid, click here.
