Shocking video shows a New Jersey teacher slamming an autistic student against a wall and throwing him to the floor, an incident that reportedly left the early teen with scrapes and bruises on his face.
Zaire Smith, 11, had his arms tied behind his back for 15 minutes after he was found guilty of throwing a chair inside a “problem-solving room” at Mount Carmel Guild Academy, according to WPIX-TV.
“It was very painful to see him on the floor, kicking his legs. I zoomed in on his face and you could see his eyes were squinting and his fingers were pointing up and you could see he was in pain and I felt it too,” his mother, Niasia Smith, said. He told Pix11. She alleged that the West Orange school tried to cover up what she called an “assault.”
Harrowing video of the April incident shows the teacher struggling with Zaire, pushing him against a wall before slamming him onto a floor mat.
The unidentified teacher used his own body weight to hold down the boy, who has autism and ADHD, for about a minute, before pulling him back, speaking to him briefly and throwing him to the ground again.
The teacher restrained Zaire in various positions on the ground for about 15 minutes as other teachers came and went from the classroom, where at least two other students sat watching.
“He said he couldn’t breathe deeply. He said he couldn’t breathe in or out, he just couldn’t breathe,” Smith told the outlet.
The teacher eventually loosened his grip on Zaire but continued to hold him for the next 15 minutes, the video shows.
At one point, a nurse came into the room to tend to a boy with a rash on his upper cheek and bruising around his eye.
Smith claims the school didn’t inform her about the incident until she picked up her son and saw his injuries, but then tried to shift the blame onto her son.
“They took me to a room… They said he brought it on himself, he was moving when he had to be restrained, he rubbed his face on the rug, etc,” she recalled.
To add insult to injury, the horrific incident began when the pre-teen was drawing on a card in class and the card was taken away from him.
After struggling in the classroom, Zaire was taken to the problem-solving room.
The boy then threw a chair, which bounced off the wall and landed on the teacher, who ended up giving the boy 15 minutes of detention.
“I felt angry and the side of my face hurt,” Zaire told media about how he felt at the time.
The Smiths said this incident is not the first they have experienced at Mount Carmel Guild Academy, which has been educating students with disabilities for more than 51 years.
The administration did not respond to The Washington Post’s request for comment.
The family has hired an attorney and plans to file a lawsuit, and met with officials from the Essex County Prosecutor’s Office last week, but it is unclear whether charges will be filed.
“I think they could have talked to him,” Smith said.
“They could have used verbal de-escalation techniques. It didn’t need to escalate to the point where someone had to physically assault my son. They didn’t need to do that.”
