Authorities arrested a woman after she managed to slip past security guards at her child’s middle school and beat up a teacher, leaving the teacher with a concussion and other serious injuries, district officials say.
Lynzina Sutton, 31, was charged with second-degree assault (injury to a school official) and third-degree burglary for her role in the attack, as reported by Syracuse.com.
Sutton went to Lincoln Middle School in Syracuse last week to target a specific female teacher, who officials haven’t named. When Sutton located that teacher in her classroom, police said she punched the teacher in the face multiple times, fracturing her nasal bone and maxillary spine bones.
“These are injuries that you don’t often see in boxing matches, so they’re quite serious,” District Attorney William Fitzpatrick said of the attack.
The teacher received a concussion from the altercation. She was treated at a hospital and later released.
Up to 30 students witnessed the fight, according to Syracuse School Superintendent Anthony Davis.
School officials say Sutton came to the school a day after a disciplinary report was made about her child. The student reportedly lied about her whereabouts during the school day. Before the school administration could address the referral, Sutton came to the school the next day.
“My mother will take care of this,” the student said, according to Fitzpatrick.
Sutton was able to blend in with other children and bypass security. Fitzpatrick said security personnel assumed she was a student because she was short and had her hood up. Authorities say she is 4 feet 10 inches tall.
Sutton was accompanied by the student’s grandmother, who was stopped by security before being allowed to enter the school. A guard tried to call after Sutton, but she continued walking and made it to the teacher’s classroom. The guard called the principal for help after they were unable to stop Sutton.
The principal tried to intervene once Sutton began beating the teacher but was unable to stop her. Sutton ran off when she was done. She was arrested later that day.
The mother is now out on bail and facing felony assault charges.
“You have a child disciplined, and the reaction from the parent is, ‘I am going to come to school and beat up the teacher,’ as opposed to address[ing] the behavioral problems with my child,” Fitzpatrick told WSYR-TV. He added that the teacher will have some “long-term issues” stemming from her injuries.
Davis said the district is reviewing its security procedures and considering improvements to avoid incidents like this in the future.
“The question is an individual circumvented our security systems purposely went in… and we’re sitting here questioning the district,” Davis said. “I don’t think the district should be the one in question here.”
Roxanne Thompkins, Sutton’s mother, told CNY Central Tuesday that she regretted that the teacher got hurt, but she says they went to the school because she and Sutton were fed up with the constant bullying that the child allegedly endured.
“She’s been slapped, she’s been kicked, they’ve broken her glasses three times, they’ve broken cell phones twice, and all we get [from the school] is ‘Well, what is she doing?’ They made her out to be the problem,” Thompkins said.
Still, the grandmother said they went to the school with the intention of speaking to the principal, adding that Sutton “never broke in”; instead, “the doors were propped open.”
“That was never supposed to be that way,” Thompkins said. “I apologize for that, and I hope she recovers. There’s always a better way to handle stuff, and we were going to talk at the school to have a conversation with the school like we have numerous times.”
