A 13-year-old student at an alternative school had his leg amputated on Tuesday afternoon following an incident with a school employee in Columbus, Georgia, according to the boy’s attorney.
Lawyers from Forrest B. Johnson and Associates representing the student said that on September 12, the boy was “thrown to the floor” several times by an Edgewood Student Services Center employee. According to his attorney, Renee Tucker, the altercation started after the boy tried to leave the classroom to call his mother from the main office. The school employee physically restrained him to prevent him from leaving the room, slamming him to the floor.
“The fact that now it’s led to an amputation just signifies the degree of force that was used with regard to our client, particularly [the teacher] body-slamming him three different times,” Tucker said.
School officials reportedly told the student that they would call an ambulance, but did not do so, even though the boy reported that his leg felt numb. Tucker said that a school resource officer saw the student limping afterward, but neither helped him nor filed a police report. The employee who was reportedly involved in the altercation later carried the student to a school bus stop and sent him home without telling his family.
The boy’s family now plans to file a lawsuit to recoup some of their medical expenses.
Edgewood is an alternative school program for grades 3–12 for students “who have been temporarily removed from their assigned school because of violations of behavior rules,” the Columbus Ledger Enquirer reported.
The Muscogee County School District (MCSD), which includes Edgewood, has since said that the employee involved was Bryant Mosley, a behavioral specialist at the Mentoring and Behavioral Services, which specializes on “holistic behavior approaches.” Mosley no longer provides services to MCSD and has not been charged with any crimes related to the incident thus far.
“Mr. Mosley is specifically trained in MindSet curriculum, a system of preventing and managing aggressive behavior, and Georgia restraint requirements,” MCSD communications director Valerie Fuller said in a statement to the Ledger Enquirer. “It is our understanding that there were issues concerning the safety of the child and others in the room, which called for the use of restraint per state guidance.
“Physical restraint is allowed in Georgia public schools and educational programs in those situations in which the student is an immediate danger to himself or others and the student is not responsive to less intensive behavioral interventions including verbal directives or other de-escalation techniques,” Fuller added.
Harsh disciplinary tactics hurt schoolchildren in a way that can jeopardize their academic careers and “push them into the criminal justice system,” as ThinkProgress has previously reported. Students of color disproportionately face more discipline in the classroom, and are more likely than their white counterparts to be suspended and expelled. In turn, students who are suspended are at higher risk of dropping out, according to a University of California at Los Angeles Civil Rights Project report.
The Columbus incident is particularly extreme, resulting in an amputation that will likely limit what the teenager can do in his future. But it’s hardly the only example of a student facing harsh physical discipline at school.
A 12-year-old Latina student in Texas was slammed to the ground by a police officer in April, for instance, after being verbally aggressive with another student. Around the same time, another black student in Texas was slapped multiple times by a white teacher who berated him, though it’s unclear what happened before the assault. In May, a high school assistant principal placed a 15-year-old student in a chokehold until she passed out during a fight with another student.
Implicit racial bias plays a role in how aggressively students of color are disciplined. A Stanford University study found that when a student believed to be black committed a second infraction, they were judged by teachers to “deserve discipline” at a higher level than white students.