Nurse under investigation after cord swung at boy with autism

NORTH LAUDERDALE, Fla. – An apparent case of child abuse involving a 6-year-old boy with autism is under investigation.

The young victim was in the care of a nurse Wednesday in North Lauderdale when that nurse and her daughter are seen swinging a charging cable at him in a video obtained exclusively by Local 10 News.

The Broward Sheriff’s Office and the nurse’s agency are investigating.

Julian Henry says the boy is her godson Levenci, who has autism and is nonverbal.

On the video, a girl is seen chasing the little boy, threatening to hit him with a cell phone charging cord. The girl is the nurse’s daughter, and the nurse can also be seen.

Levenci’s mom asked his nurse to come a bit early so she could go run some errands, and she was surprised when the woman brought her daughter, but the mom says she just needed the help.

But, when they looked back at the video a while later, they were stunned.

First, the nurse is seen threatening Levenci with the cord and swinging it at him. He jumped backward out of the way. Then, over the next 10 minutes, the nurse’s daughter threatened him with the cord multiple times.

“It really disturbs me, it really really hurts me to the core,” Henry said. “To see somebody innocent being attacked by somebody that knows better, and then your mother is sitting right there and laughing and thinks that’s funny, that’s not funny.”

Because Levenci is nonverbal, Henry says he will pull you when he needs or wants something and physically show you what it is. But, when he tries that with the nurse’s daughter, she just ignores him, holding the cord in a threatening way over her shoulder the entire time. Meanwhile, the nurse does nothing.

“Do you have a heart? Do you care?” Henry said. “And you have a daughter. What if someone did that to your daughter that couldn’t speak?”

Levenci’s godmother tells Local 10 News that the nurse was fired by the company she worked for, National Nursing Pool. We have reached out to them and they wouldn’t confirm if she was fired but did say they’re very concerned by the allegations and are doing their own investigation.