A North Carolina high school student was indicted on charges of kidnapping and assaulting two government officials after a video emerged online last month, showing the boy allegedly slapping and threatening one of the school’s teachers, authorities said.
Aquavis Hickman, 17, is also charged with assaulting another teacher at Parkland Magnet High School in Winston-Salem back in February, while Forsyth County District Attorney Jim O’Neill confirmed the teen will be tried as an adult for both alleged crimes.
A grand jury convened April 29 and brought two indictments against the defendant, O’Neill said at a press conference on May 2.
Hickman was charged with second-degree kidnapping following the second incident on April 15, when he allegedly slapped a female teacher, who was seated, and confined and restrained her with threats in front of a shocked classroom.
The teen also faces assault charges in connection with the same incident, along with communicating threats against the teacher after he allegedly said he would kill her, according to court papers.
The district attorney emphasized that the “threat was made in a manner and under circumstances which would cause a reasonable person to believe that threat was likely to be carried out, and the person threatened believed it would, in fact, be carried out.”
Video of the disturbing incident, which was circulating on social media, shows the student violently slapping the teacher twice while standing over the woman and yelling profanities.
“Do you think that affected me in any way?” the teacher can be heard asking following the first blow. “Want me to hit you again?” the suspect angrily interjects, stepping forward intimidatingly, while asking a second time, “Want me to hit you again?”
At this point, the teacher pleads with the boy, saying, “I don’t want it,” before she is pounded again. This time, the impact was so forceful that her glasses were knocked off her face, all while the teenager stood cussing and screaming.
“Ain’t nobody even coming. You got slapped,” the woman’s attacker can be heard saying in the video. “B—-, go back to teaching.”
Hickman was also charged with the same offenses as well as a misdemeanor count of riot and causing a disturbance in connection with a similar assault on a male teacher in February.
During this incident, Hickman allegedly teamed up with two other students and “engaged in a public disturbance, kidnapping the second teacher in this case, attempting to fight him,” according to the indictment, which also noted: “This disorderly and violent conduct created a clear and present danger of injury to the victim.”
The two other students involved were never identified by authorities, while Winston-Salem/Forsyth County Schools officials declined to comment on any student discipline that Hickman might have faced in connection with the Feb. 1 incident.
At the time, a Forsyth County sheriff’s deputy responded to the school and filed a report, but at last week’s press conference, officials declined to explain why formal charges were not brought in the earlier case until now.
Neither victim has been named publicly.
Assault on school personnel is a level 5 offense in the school district’s code of conduct, which is one of the 16 criminal offenses that must be reported to the N.C. Department of Public Instruction. The highest level of offense, level 6, includes serious crimes like homicide, sexual offense with a minor, sexual assault, and kidnapping.
Winston-Salem/Forsyth County Schools Superintendent Tricia McManus said a hearing will be scheduled soon to determine whether to permanently expel Hickman from the district, calling the incidents involving him “despicable,” “mortifying,” “unacceptable,” and “egregious.”
“It’s just like everything else,” she explained to WGHP. “You’ve got people that are going to make bad decisions on a daily basis in schools, out of schools, in the community, everywhere. And we’ve got to take those incidents and we’ve got to address them.”
At last week’s news conference to announce the charges against Hickman, Forsyth County Sheriff Bobby Kimbrough emphasized the importance of protecting teachers, stating that everyone owes a debt to educators.
“Everyone sitting in this room owes a debt to the woman or man who educated you: teachers,” he said, according to Fox News. “All of us are who we are because of the men and women that educated us.”
Kimbrough also highlighted the challenges faced and sacrifices made by teachers, including breaking up fights and getting injured while still doing their jobs. He expressed concern over the rise in incidents involving students since 2020, emphasizing the need to safeguard teachers.
Winston-Salem Police Chief William Penn, Jr. added, “Our schools aren’t a battleground nor a boxing ring. … Our schools must be safer.”
Penn said he met with the teacher following the incident, and said he was “amazed that she even showed up for work today. Those who’ve seen the video are horrified by what they watched.”
District Attorney O’Neill summed the situation up by emphasizing that the violence against two educators was inexcusable and demanded justice.
“Those that educate our children, those that give our children hope, must not go to work in fear of being assaulted,” he said, according to Richard-Times Dispatch. “Sheriff Kimbrough, Chief Penn and myself made a promise to this community that we would not tolerate any assaults on our teachers, plain and simple.”
He added: “We stand with the teachers, we will fight to protect those teachers and if you lay a hand on a teacher and assault a teacher you can expect that the punishment will be swift and severe. Promise made and promise kept.”
