Questions Remain After City School Officer Caught Hitting Student

BALTIMORE (WJZ) -- Many questions remain unanswered after a city school police officer is caught on video slapping and kicking a student. Now a group is calling for major changes to Baltimore school police policies.

Ava-joye Burnett with the demands, and the latest on the investigation.

For months, that advocacy group has been demanding an overhaul of how officers operate in Baltimore City schools. This latest incident is making the calls even louder.

REACH! Partnership School is now synonymous with video of a school police officer slapping and kicking a tenth grader.

The result--the officer landing the hits and the officer standing by both on administrative leave, along with the city schools' police chief.

"I just think what he did was messed up--and the price--whatever happened to him, happened to him," said Nathaniel McCoy, student.

"Your job is supposed to protect us, not hurt us," said Dasaun Hendricks, student.

Days after that video surfaced, there are still a lot of questions that the school system has not answered--like what happened before the video, what happened after the video and why was the chief of city schools police, who wasn't even in the video, also placed on administrative leave?

While the public waits for those answers, the 16-year-old's lawyer tells WJZ his injuries sent him to the hospital.

"You hope that's never your child, and that when your child goes to school, that child is respected and appreciated and that the people who take an oath to protect those children never turn around and do what that officer did to my client, " said Lauren Geisser, student's lawyer.

Right now, a Maryland-based advocacy group is calling for swift changes, where Baltimore school police officers would have limits on what they can and cannot do while they're on the job.

"We don't know what happened right before this incident, that's true. But no matter what happened, that officer's behavior was inappropriate," said Nicole Joseph, Coalition to Reform School Discipline.

The student's lawyer told WJZ that her client had bruised ribs and also injuries to his face.

Both the Baltimore Police Department and the State's Attorney's Office are part of the criminal investigation.