Growing Outrage Over Video Of Officer Slapping Student
BALTIMORE (WJZ) -- The video of a city school officer slapping a student is making its rounds on the Internet. It's made a lot of people angry, including the councilwoman who represents that district.
Ava-joye Burnett has more on her reaction.
It's the video that triggered an investigation: a tenth grader at REACH! Partnership getting slapped around and kicked by a Baltimore schools police officer.
Councilwoman Mary Pat Clarke represents the district. WJZ showed her the video for the first time.
Clarke: "Oh, it's a school police?"
Burnett: "Yes ma'am, it's a school police officer."
Clarke: "Oh!"
Burnett: "This is in your district. What are your thoughts on seeing this?"
Clarke: "I'm outraged. There is no context that could correct what I just saw."
"This man is beating up this boy who's standing there, not even fighting back," Clarke added.
RELATED: BPD Investigating After City Schools Officer Caught Slapping Student
The video was just seconds long, but many folks WJZ spoke with said no matter what happened before or after, the police officer was not supposed to hit that student.
"It's not really an excuse to put your hands on somebody else's child. That's just wrong. How would he feel if somebody did that to his child?" said Larry Griffin.
"I feel as though he overreacted because he really didn't have to hit him like he did," said Pedro Chesley.
The 16-year-old student now has an attorney and the school system is now doing some investigating of its own.
"I'm glad he's on administrative leave, I'm glad he's not in that school at this moment or will be. I have confidence the school system will follow up and do what's right about what happened here," said Clarke.
"There's no way to take it back. You can't take back what just happened there," she continued.
The school police officer caught landing those slaps and his colleague standing on the side who didn't step in are both on administrative leave.
School officials say their officers were armed.
