A high school freshman in New Jersey was charged with assault Friday for a classroom fight with a teacher that was posted on YouTube.
The 23-second clip shows a freshman at John F. Kennedy High School in Paterson manhandling a middle-aged teacher. The student wraps his arm around the teacher, drags him through the front of the classroom and then throws him onto the ground, and appears to hit him several times.
The physics teacher, who is 62, makes no attempt to fight back and none of the other students try to stop the fight, but one mutters, “Yo, chill!” when the student throws down his teacher as another classmate calls for security.
The fight allegedly started after the teacher confiscated the student’s cellphone.The fight allegedly started after the teacher confiscated the student’s cellphone.
The video, which was recorded by a classmate, has been viewed more than 150,000 times since it went online Wednesday, one day after the incident.
The names of the student and teacher have not been released.
The 16-year-old student allegedly assaulted the teacher because the man took his cellphone from another student who was using it in class, according to the Bergen County Record. The assailant appears to be trying to snatch the phone from the teacher’s hands at the beginning of the video.
The student was arrested Friday and has been suspended from school.
The teacher has worked for the district since 2003, the Record reports.
School district spokesperson Terry Corallo told the paper she “disappointed” to see the other students didn’t try to stop the fight.
sOURCE: NYNEWSDAILY