Teacher caught on video choking and dragging an 11-year-old student

Jan 14, 2015

Dekalb County, GA — In shocking surveillance footage, a Georgia teacher is seen choking and dragging an 11-year-old student in the cafeteria.

The incident occurred in May, but it wasn’t until the boy’s mother, Chiquita Handley, filed an open records request with DeKalb County Schools that she was able to see, months later, the footage of what really happened. “I saw it and my heart just dropped,” she said to WXIA. “It’s nothing anyone ever wants to see their child go through.”

In the video, the student, Ravon, is sitting with his friends when fifth-grade teacher Stephanie Fleet grabs his chair out from under him. “She’s choking him from behind. She’s walking with him and choking him at the same time,” Handley said. “My son’s feet were lifted to the tip of his toes because of the force she used around my son’s neck, pulling back on my son’s neck.”

Fleet drags Ravon out into the hallway, where two more teachers arrive to escort him to the front office.

Fleet said the video fails to show her side of things and does not show Ravon acting out, swearing and even threatening to hit his teacher. “He raised his hand to hit me,” she said in a statement. “I thought this [choking] was an acceptable defensive hold for a student.”

But Handley said that misbehavior is no cause for this kind of action. “She choked somebody’s child, and she’s able to get back into the same building and teach,” she said. “If it was me choking my own child caught on tape, there’s no way that my two kids would still be in the house with me. She should not be teaching.”

Handley says she will pursue legal action against the teacher and the school after the school’s only actions were to put Fleet on three days’ suspension, give her a letter of reprimand, and put her through a professional development plan. She is calling for stricter punishments.