Miami-Dade daycare teacher accused of shaking 2-year-old by the neck

A Lincoln Marti daycare teacher was accused of grabbing a 2-year-old by the neck and shaking him, a fresh allegation that puts one of Miami-Dade’s best-known childcare brands back under a safety microscope. Lincoln-Martí Schools & Childcare Centers says it has served families since 1968 and provides care for children ages 0 to 5.

The new accusation lands in a setting where parents have already seen what can happen when oversight fails. In December 2024, Merlin Gutierrez, 21, was arrested after police said surveillance video captured an alleged assault on a 2-year-old girl at Lincoln-Marti Child Care school at Southwest 221st Street and 112th Avenue in southwest Miami-Dade. By Feb. 24, 2025, Gutierrez had been charged with child abuse in connection with the Dec. 9 incident, with NBC 6 saying the charge was child abuse without great bodily harm and bond was set at $5,000. A social-media excerpt tied to that case said the episode happened around 8:30 a.m. and that Gutierrez allegedly grabbed, shook, dragged and repeatedly slapped the child. A separate 2018 Local 10 report described another Lincoln Marti School abuse case in Miami Beach in which a teacher was accused of hitting multiple children.

For Miami-Dade parents, the key issue is not only what happened in one classroom, but what the system is supposed to catch before harm reaches a child. Florida’s child-care licensing program sits under the Department of Children and Families, and its public search tool lets families view provider profiles and the three-year inspection history for each child-care center. State rules also require providers to keep a licensing notebook on-site and available during regular business hours, including licensing study reports, special investigation reports and related corrective actions issued after May 27, 2010.

Staff screening is another checkpoint. Florida DCF requires a Level II background screening for child-care workers, and the screening must be completed before employment, after a 90-day break in service and every five years. When parents are vetting a daycare, the records that matter are the license, the inspection history, the staff screening process and whether the center can explain how it handles camera footage when an allegation is made.

Florida also keeps a 24-hour abuse hotline, 1-800-962-2873, for reports of suspected child abuse, neglect or abandonment. In a county with dozens of Lincoln-Martí locations, the latest allegation is likely to sharpen questions about how quickly complaints are documented, how evidence is preserved and whether Miami-Dade families are getting the level of scrutiny they expect before they hand over a toddler at drop-off.