EVENDALE, Ohio — A teacher at St. Rita School for the Deaf is accused of throwing one of her students down on the ground and the incident was partially caught on camera.
The alleged incident happened on Tuesday, December 6th. The mother of the student wants the teacher fired and feels the Archdiocese of Cincinnati has downplayed what happened.
"No matter what way you watch it, it's very obvious that, that was a malicious act it wasn't an accidental," said Alexys Wells. "When I had first seen the video, I was so outraged that I had to take a minute. I was completely speechless, couldn't really focus on what I wanted to say."
The video shows a teacher picking up a 9-year-old student in the hallway, and then the student is on the ground. The video glitches during the part where the child is in the teacher's arms, then continues when the child is on the ground. Wells recorded the school's surveillance on her cell phone and then showed it to WCPO.
"She's completely non-verbal so the very first thing that she did was demonstrate what had happened with her teacher," said Wells, who said her daughter communicated the incident through ASL and re-enactment. "She just continuously was like 'my teacher threw me, my teacher threw me, my teacher threw me, she was angry, she threw me.'"
What happened inside the classroom before the incident in the hallway captured on camera is unclear, said Wells.
"They didn't say what exactly happened or what led up to it, nothing," added Wells. "The school didn't really tell me, she (school's president) said she was having issues with transitioning. Because of her brain disorder, she does have issues with transitioning between subject to subject or task to task."
Another angle of the incident in the hallway shows the teacher picking up the child, who was near the wall, then walking her down the hallway, but it's difficult to see what happened after that. Then the camera captures the teacher returning to her classroom.
Wells said the school didn't let her know about what happened until the next day, and called it a "minor incident."
WCPO reached out to the Archdiocese of Cincinnati about the allegations. A spokeswoman didn't answer our questions about what happened inside of the classroom before the hallway incident, or tell us when they notified the mother, but said the teacher involved is now on administrative leave.
WCPO also contacted Evendale Police to find out what's happening with the investigation. Well said she wanted to file a police report, but the department allegedly wouldn't allow her to.
"He still has not taken a statement from me, the report they have is the report with St. Rita," said Wells.
As of Monday night, Evendale Police had not responded to WCPO's inquiry. According to WHIO in Dayton, Evendale Police have opened an investigation into the incident.
"I think all of them should be held accountable," said Wells.
You can watch the surveillance recording of the incident in the player below:
