Disturbing video captured the moment a teacher appears to kick a 5-year-old girl.
Disturbing video captured the moment a teacher appears to kick a 5-year-old girl.
The incident happened at Bluejacket-Flint Elementary School in Shawnee, Kansas. After other students leave the library, the girl, who is not being identified, can be seen climbing into a bookcase, video shows. When the teacher spots the child, she pulls her off the bookshelf she's lying on and then walks away.
Then, with the child still lying there, the teacher returns and appears to kick the girl in the back.
The girl's mother, who contacted the school the day of the incident, said that she had a red mark on her arm when she came home. Asked about her day, the child reportedly replied, "I don’t like my teacher. She’s really mean. She hit me on my arm."
The mother said she later had a conversation with the teacher in question, which she secretly recorded. The teacher replied that she wasn't "surprised" the child had marks on her.
"She was crawling in the bookshelf," the teacher said. "She has a red spot on her arm. And I'm not surprised because she shoved herself into that bookshelf … I mean, she kicked me a couple of times. She was reaching over into the bookshelf pulling books out and there were those metal, metal book divider things."
The mother then learned there might be surveillance video of the incident and asked to see it.
“When I saw the video it was heartbreaking, because everything [the teacher] said, she sat at the same table as me and just lied about everything ... she lied to me," the mother told KCTV. "She lied to everyone else. She was almost really convincing."
Attorney Dan Zmijewski, who represents the family, told the Kansas City Star the girl is "terrified" of returning to school.
The teacher has since been fired by the Shawnee Mission School District.
“There was no question that we were going to do everything we could immediately to terminate that teacher and to look after that child,” school district spokesman David Smith said. “No child should have to experience that. It’s a horrible situation.
"We feel terrible about it and that person no longer works for us," he added.
Prosecutors are also reviewing the case.
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