Truesee's Daily Wonder

Dallas ISD middle school student tied to classroom chair and beaten, mother says

The Dallas school district has launched an investigation after allegations that a 12-year-old middle school boy was taped to a classroom chair Monday and beaten up by other students.

The alleged incident occurred at Storey Middle School in east Oak Cliff, where four students stormed into the boy’s science classroom and targeted him, said the boy’s mother, Keneshia Richardson.

She said the students, all boys, attached her son’s wrists to a chair with duct tape and a telephone cord, wrapped clear tape around his face and mouth, and knocked him to the ground. At one point, his shirt was ripped off, she said. The substitute teacher in the classroom did not stop the attack, she said.

Richardson suspected the four students targeted her son because he’s in remedial classes.

Dallas ISD spokesman Jon Dahlander said that the district was aware of the incident but that some of the details of the mother’s account were different than what he had been told.

“This is not quite the way that the incident has been described,” said Dahlander, who declined to elaborate. “In any event, it is under investigation and disciplinary action is pending” for the accused students and the substitute teacher.

Dahlander said the substitute, whose name wasn’t released, has been placed on the district’s “do not call list” as a substitute not to be used again.

Richardson, who filed a report with Dallas ISD police Wednesday afternoon, said her son was sitting in his third-period class when the four students barged in. She said he had trouble breathing after they placed clear Scotch tape around his nose, mouth and face.

“It was uncalled for,” Richardson said. “They don’t realize how serious it could be. He couldn’t breathe.”

The alleged attack finally stopped after a girl in the classroom scared the boys away, grabbed the student off the floor and released him from the chair. The boy ran down the hallway to a school resource officer, who provided him another shirt to wear.

“If the little girl had not come over and taken the tape off, my son would have died,” Richardson said. “I’m scared at this point to send my children back to school.”