Video shows Atlanta teacher body slamming high school student and clears students of charges
Parents of a South Atlanta High School student are outraged after a video of a teacher beating up their 17-year-old son became public.
“He just went crazy. I don’t understand why,” the teen’s mother, Shekela Bryant, said.
“To choke, to push him on the ground by his face. It’s just too much, too much for a good morning tap.”
The student, whose name is being withheld, reportedly tapped the graduation teacher Henry Coleman on the shoulder and said, “What’s up?”
“It’s crazy. I just can’t get it. I don’t understand why he would attack a child like that,” Bryant said.
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That move apparently set off the teacher who the parents say went into a violent tirade and beat the student up on Oct. 3.
“I just felt my body, my whole body, just fly into the table with books on it. He came to the table, slung me off the table to the ground,” the teen said.
The teacher has been charged with a simple battery, but the teen’s father said the assault was anything but simple.
“Oh, no way, no way. That was not a battery. That was a brutal attack,” the teen’s father, Jamil Koonce, said.
“I was very angry and very shocked,” Koonce said to WSBTV who broke the story. “That was aggravated assault, cruelty to children.”
The school first blamed the student for the altercation because Coleman said he was just defending himself, but then the video showed that the student’s version of the story matched with what he told school officials. The school is currently still investigating.
“He told the truth. Exactly what happened is what he said happened. I told you so,” attorney Kimberly Bandoh said.
The parents, however, want Coleman, who has been terminated according to the district, to face a harsher penalty. The parents have since removed the teen from South Atlanta High School.