A perverted dental technician who molested toddlers under anesthesia, a daycare worker caught on video slapping and restraining little boys, and an Illinois man charged with producing child sexual abuse material of his own family member — three cases in one week, three examples of a system that only acts after children are already broken.

The stakes are plain: every institution parents trust with their kids — dental offices, daycares, even the home — can become a hunting ground, and the safeguards either arrive too late or don't exist at all.

In Arizona, Delon Garcia, 29, was sentenced to 40 years in prison after pleading guilty to abusing three children between the ages of four and six while they were sedated during dental procedures at Kidiatric Dental, according to the New York Post. Garcia was originally facing 14 felony counts but walked away with a plea deal on four: attempted molestation of a child, sexual conduct with a minor, and two counts of attempted sexual exploitation of a minor. He lured a six-year-old girl to a separate room by telling her staff liked to bring kids her age "to a different room to check out their teeth," then told her mother to stay behind. A forensic search of his phone uncovered explicit images of a four-year-old victim abused while under anesthesia. The first known incident dates to September 2022 — meaning Garcia had nearly two years of access to children before investigators opened a case in May 2024.

In Georgia, a daycare teacher at Small World Education Center in Berrien County was arrested Thursday after a mother discovered video of her four-year-old son being restrained and slapped and her three-year-old being grabbed and dragged by his arms, Live 5 News reported. The Georgia Department of Early Childcare and Learning had no immediate information. Parents found the daycare closed with no word on whether the shutdown was temporary or permanent — the people entrusted with toddlers couldn't even be bothered to notify families.

In Illinois, Enrique Rubio, 32, of Shorewood was arrested on felony charges of producing child sexual abuse material and predatory criminal sexual assault of a child after a cybertip to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children last October, Shaw Local reported. A forensic review of Rubio's phone yielded five videos, and detectives identified the juvenile victim as a family member. The arrest didn't come until this week.

Maricopa County Attorney Rachel Mitchell said Garcia "was trusted with the care of vulnerable children" and "exploited that trust for his own sexual gratification." True enough — but trust is a two-way street, and institutions keep proving they don't deserve it. A dental office that lets a tech isolate sedated children without supervision. A daycare that apparently needed a parent to discover the abuse on video. A system that relies on internet tips instead of vetting the people it places near kids.

Garcia will serve his decades, then face lifetime supervised probation. Schlueter faces cruelty charges. Rubio faces felony counts. The question that lingers: how many children were delivered into the hands of these predators while institutions were busy with everything except the one job that mattered?