A Georgia teacher has been placed on administrative leave after footage of him verbally threatening an African-American student surfaced this week. Now, the student’s mother wants him gone for good.
Parent April Carr said the shocking incident was caught on video by a student at Rockdale Career Academy where teacher Paul Hagan was heard threatening to “put a bullet” in her son’s head. Carr told local Atlanta station WSB-TV she was shocked and outraged to hear the physics teacher curse and issue such a threat.
“Don’t smile at me, man,” Hagan is heard saying in the video. “That’s how people like you get shot. I got a bet by the time you’re 21 somebody’s gonna to put a bullet right through your head. Okay? And it might be me the one who does it.”
The concerned mother isn’t taking the matter lightly and said she consider’s Hagan’s words a “terroristic threat” on my son’s life.” Carr has since filed a police report and is pushing to get the teacher fired.
She told the station she received a call from the school’s assistant principal last Thursday informing her that someone had used profanity toward her son. That’s when she saw the video, prompting her to question her son about what had happened. Her son admitted that he and his classmates were laughing as Hagan wrote an equation on the whiteboard, which may have prompted his tirade.
“He definitely should have been paying attention, getting his lesson …and doing what he was supposed to be doing,” Carr told Fox 5 News of her son’s behavior. “But at the end of the day, he’s is a child and that teacher is an adult. He is supposed to maintain control of that classroom and of himself.”
“If you are frustrated, pull him out the class or wait until another class period,” she added. “Let yourself calm down and then pull him to the side and talk to him. You don’t threaten his life.”
In an e-mailed statement, school officials said the matter is currently being investigated.
