Police: Abrasions on child's face from playground slide, not daycare employee

Luna said his two boys were playing with markers and had written all over each other and he couldn’t get the markings off by the time he dropped them off at the day care center the next morning. Luna said he told day care employees not to worry about the markings, but claimed that a teacher scrubbed the child’s face, resulting in the injuries.

In the Friday statement, Fuquay-Varina Police Chief Laura Fahnestock said the daycare employee did use a sponge to remove the mark from the child's face and later noticed a skin-irritation from the sponge. The employee then notified Luna, and he took the child to get medical attention. Photos of the original injuries were provided to police as part of the investigation, Fahnestock said.

After the initial report, the child sustained additional injuries to his face—resulting in abrasions unrelated to the original injuires—while playing on a slide at the playground. The secondary injuries, Fahnestock said, were accidental and not related to any child abuse, which was confirmed through interviews with Luna, witnesses and photographic evidence.

Authorities said the photos of the boy’s face, which were widely distributed to the media by Luna, “may have been misleading to portray possible criminal child abuse.”

Police said that investigators determined that the boy had sustained additional facial injuries unrelated to the Little Angels Preparatory school and unrelated to any physical abuse at the school or elsewhere.