According to police and media, a Texas special education teacher and two paraprofessionals were imprisoned for allegedly taping up the hands of a pupil with Down syndrome and making the child walk in circles for almost four hours while being shouted at.
According to court documents, police seized surveillance footage of the alleged horrific abuse that took place inside the Tyler High School classroom on March 12 and arrested Krystina Rena Haas, 35; Prisicilla Gutierrez, 22; and June Tryon, 57, on Friday.
According to investigators, the unsettling episode lasted for almost four hours and fifteen minutes.
According to court filings, Haas, the special education teacher, told police the day before her arrest that “it’s not going to hurt them to stand for four hours or to walk.”
“They’re not precious babies, they’re 14 or 15-year-old teenage kids.”
Around 11:30 a.m., according to the police, the special needs student was taken to a life skills room and told to walk in circles.
After screaming in the student’s face and asking her assistant Tyron to “get the tape,” Haas was spotted rushing across the room two hours later, according to the publication.
using the help of Gutierrez, Tryon bound the student’s hands together using packing tape to prevent his fingers from moving.
Police documents show that Haas later tightened the wrapping with more tape.
According to reports, the boy was made to walk in circles for another half hour while Gutierrez, the second classroom assistant, sat back down and crocheted.
According to the police, he was subsequently put in the room’s corner and stood there for an hour and forty-four minutes before being dismissed for the day.
After she picked up her distraught and bruised grandchild from the bus, the boy’s grandmother informed the school district about the incident.
Haas, who justified the violence, told investigators that if pupils misbehave, it is standard procedure to have them walk around the classroom for ten to fifteen minutes.
According to court documents, she said the youngster was disciplined after he constantly reprimanded her and refused to do his assignment.
She claimed that although it had happened once, he was the only student whose hands had ever been taped.
The three employees were arrested at the Smith County Jail-Haas on a $300,000 bond, with the other two each posting a $150,000 bond, on charges of injury to a child, old person, or disabled person.
After their arrests, the heartless teachers were also dismissed from the school district.
“We believe in being transparent with our community while respecting the legal process and student privacy,” the Tyler Independent School District stated.
“This situation involved a student with disabilities, while it did not include sexual acts or severe bodily harm, we take any breach of student safety with the utmost seriousness. As soon as these allegations were brought to our attention, the district took immediate action – launching an internal investigation, notifying Child Protective Services as required by state law, and fully cooperating with law enforcement.”
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