A disturbing classroom incident has led to a lawsuit after a video surfaced showing an elementary school teacher in Indianapolis encouraging his students to engage in physical violence akin to a “fight club,” FOX 59 reported.
The lawsuit was filed on Tuesday in Marion Superior Court by Corrie Horan, the mother of the seven-year-old victim.
Indianapolis Public Schools (IPS) is among the defendants named in the lawsuit, which also includes the school’s principal, vice principal, superintendent, school board, and teacher Julious Johnican, who is accused of facilitating this violent discipline method.
The shocking video, central to the lawsuit, captures a student being pummeled by another while the teacher, Julious Johnican, eggs on the violence.
The footage shows a boy on the floor being hit in the head and face, his head slammed against the ground, as he cries, and the teacher encourages the aggressor, who can be heard saying, “That’s right… you get him.”
The incident took place at George Washington Carver School in Indianapolis, where Horan’s son, a special needs student “with disabilities, including sensory sensitivities, an executive function disorder, and probable learning disabilities,” was repeatedly bullied and assaulted under the guise of discipline orchestrated by Johnican.
Horan discovered the abuse after Johnican accidentally showed her footage of her son’s beating during a parent-teacher conference.
Horan’s suit accuses Johnican of running a “fight club” where he incited and facilitated students to engage in violence against her son, identified as “O.D.” in the lawsuit, over three months.
The suit details at least three incidents where O.D. was beaten and subjected to various forms of physical harm and bullying within the classroom.
FOX 59 reported:
The mother said the school didn’t follow up about an investigation or provide additional information. The parent tried to schedule a meeting about the incident, but she was “repeatedly informed that it was her child who was disruptive, lying and that this was a sign of a disordered personality in the child and related to his ADHD,” according to the lawsuit.
The boy also told his mother that he heard a substitute teacher say that “special needs students were demonically possessed.” The same substitute teacher, according to the DCS investigation, appeared to support the fight, telling an administrator, “[They’re] bad kids, that’s what you do!” when asked about the September incident.
The boy said staff told him he “was bad and ‘needed to be baptized’ and that ‘holy water needed to be poured on him’ to cure him of his evil,” according to the lawsuit.
The boy’s grades dropped precipitously. He pleaded with his mother not to send him to school. And as the days and weeks passed, and he told his mother he was being attacked and that his teacher had apparently supported it, the school met his accounts with skepticism.
Then the video surfaced during the Nov. 1 parent-teacher conference, spurring an investigation from the Indiana Department of Child Services.
The DCS investigation validated the boy’s claims, saying they were substantiated “due to the preponderance of evidence” surrounding the case. Johnican had “knowingly and willingly engaged in behaviors toward the victims that jeopardized their overall well-being while in his care as a teacher at IPS 87,” according to the DCS report.
The incident has been reported to the Indiana Department of Child Services, and IPS has stated that Johnican was removed from the classroom, suspended, and no longer has contact with students or employment with IPS.
The lawsuit alleges discrimination, negligent care, negligent hiring, retention, and supervision, and inadequate policies and protection, demanding a jury trial and unspecified damages for the psychological and emotional trauma inflicted on O.D.
Indianapolis Public Schools released the following statement via FOX 59:
IPS does not tolerate the type of behavior alleged in the complaint and takes reports of potential abuse and neglect seriously. When IPS learned of the teacher’s conduct, the Department of Child Services (DCS) was immediately notified, and the teacher was removed from the classroom and suspended. The teacher had no further contact with students and is no longer employed by IPS.
IPS was not aware of any fights encouraged or sanctioned by this or any other teacher from the student’s parents or otherwise, until the parent emailed the principal at 6:58 p.m. Oct. 30.
The principal first viewed this email early morning the next day (Oct 31), and immediately contacted DCS and IPS Human Resources.
The teacher was immediately removed from the building and never returned to the classroom.
The teacher was interviewed by Human Resources on November 2 as part of its investigation into the matter. The employee resigned during that meeting before IPS could initiate termination proceedings, which the district was prepared to do based on the information received from the internal investigation.
Because this matter is the subject of pending litigation, it is inappropriate to comment further on our investigation of this matter.
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