COLERAIN TOWNSHIP, Ohio — Colerain police released body camera video from the moments after a 16-year-old student allegedly attacked his teacher in class.
That assault put her in the hospital, after Hamilton County Prosecutor Melissa Powers said the student punched the teacher multiple times in her head. The teacher was taken to UC Medical Center, where Powers said her skull cap had to be removed "in order to prevent brain damage due to swelling."
In the video, the student tells officers he started freaking out minutes after hitting a vape in the bathroom. We also see the vape in question that officers bring into an office while they're questioning the teenager. He said he thought he was in a dream.
Watch the full body camera footage:
In the more than an hour of footage, the teen is first seen on the ground with someone consoling him. Moments after officers get the student up, he appears to lose his footing and they ask him if he's under the influence.
"Did you take anything, smoke anything, drink anything," one officer asked.
"I took a cart," the 16-year-old said.
The cart is what officers described as the vape.
"Did someone give you something in the bathroom?" an officer asked.
The teenager makes an inaudible noise.
"Yeah, OK, what was it?" the officer asked.
Then a woman asks if the teen is hurt.
The officer says, "I think he might have hit his head."
"I think he was banging his head against the glass," the woman said.
This is where officers agree that the student is not in the right state of mind and speculate what he may have ingested.
"He's all over the place, sometimes we're good, sometimes we're up, his heart rate is at like 170," said an officer, urging someone to watch him while he leaves the room.
The officers are seen asking him who the teen who he was vaping with and he described two students. He also describes the vape with a "42" on it. Minutes later, an officer comes in with what appears to be the vape in question.
"Juicy strawberry," said one officer, describing the vape's label.
Clyde Bennett, the 16-year-old's lawyer, told WCPO 9 days ago that medical test results will hopefully determine what his client ingested.
"His behavior, his violent behavior, his erratic behavior, the attack, the assault was not the result of him trying to attack the teacher, it was the result of the impact an influence that the drugs had on him it made him that way," Bennett said. "He didn't believe he was ingesting drugs he was just consuming a vape like a lot of juveniles and teenagers do."
Interviews with other students who witnessed the attack detail how the 16-year-old seemed out of it.
"He started staring out to the space and stuff, and then he started moving the desk around, desks are falling over and stuff," one student said.
There are moments where the 16-year-old is crying and making requests, with one woman saying he needed someone to hug him.
The student describes to officers what he said was like a "dream-like state" during the attack.
"It's like it's delayed," he said.
"It's delayed?" replied the officer.
"Yeah," the 16-year-old said.
"OK, in the classroom, can we go back to the classroom when you started freaking out?" the officer said. "Do you remember having any conversation with the teacher?"
"Oh, the teacher, she says she was going to call the police, and then I just started punching," the student said.
"You started punching who?" the officer asked.
"The teacher," the teen replied.
The teen also specified that he hit the teacher in the head.
The footage also shows the teen get loaded into an ambulance after the officers decide to send him to Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center for head injuries.
The teen is then seen getting booked into the Hamilton County Juvenile Detention Center where he's shackled but not handcuffed. The officers say they couldn't handcuff him because of his injuries, which included his right hand being bandaged.
The 16-year-old is due back in court Feb. 12.
