BY: Denver Sean
Published 8 years ago
A Baltimore City second-grader was sent to the hospital with a broken jaw after his parents say he was assaulted by an instructor at his school.
25-year-old Timothy Randall has been charged with felony first- and second-degree child abuse, felony first- and misdemeanor second-degree assault, misdemeanor reckless endangerment and misdemeanor neglect of a minor.
via NBC:
The parents of the boy, Travon Grayson, 7, who attends City Springs Elementary/Middle School, said their son suffered mouth and facial injuries that will require surgery.
Lateekqua Jackson and Travon Grayson Sr., Travon’s parents, said their son is bruised, swollen, cut and is missing several teeth. They believe Travon was injured when Korr assaulted him.
“My son told me that (Korr) threw my son into a wall,” Jackson said. “My son had dreams about it all last night. He’s still shaking in his sleep, saying that he keeps having visions of (Korr) throwing him into a wall.”
Jackson said the tutor was escorting Travon to the main office for disciplinary reasons at the end of the school day on Monday, but they never made it to the office.
Jackson said that when she got to the school, Travon was in an ambulance and crying. She said the teacher was also there with Travon’s blood on his clothes.
“The teacher told me that he put him over his shoulder, and when he put him down he was bleeding,” Jackson said. “That’s it. How can you tell somebody like that? He said he made a mistake. He said, ‘I made a mistake. It was a mistake.’ That’s what he said.”
City police said their child abuse detectives responded on Monday to Johns Hopkins Children’s Center to investigate the child abuse claim.
Police said detectives responded to the school and were given access to a video which captured the incident. After viewing the video and examining all other evidence, detectives concluded that a crime had been committed and obtained an arrest warrant for Korr.
Baltimore police media relations Chief T.J. Smith said video of the incident shows the boy being slammed by a man.
“The video does show him carrying the child and slamming him up against the wall, and it’s very difficult to watch. We cringed a number of times as we watched the video,” Smiths said.
Smith said the boy’s body went limp after the assault.
“It’s never appropriate to inflict this type of harm on a child,” Smith said. “That video basically made our investigation pick up that much more. It showed an assault, and it showed this 7-year-old boy in school being slammed about by this 25-year-old man, and I’m being nice by calling him a 25-year-old man.”
“To fracture his face and make his teeth fall out, a 7-year-old cannot do that to himself,” Jackson said.
A spokeswoman for Baltimore City schools issued a statement, saying that the school system is cooperating with a police investigation.
City schools said Korr is an employee of a charter operator for the school called Baltimore Curriculum Project.
“(Monday) at City Springs Elementary/Middle School a student was injured while being taken to the school office,” city schools said in a statement. “Our thoughts are with the child and his family as he recovers.”
A city schools spokeswoman declined to offer any additional statements on the incident.
“We have said what we are going to say,” the spokeswoman said. “He is not a city schools employee.”
The Baltimore Curriculum Project said Korr has been fired.
“We are heartsick that this child suffered this injury,” Baltimore Curriculum Project executive vice president Larry Schugam said in a statement. “We pray for his complete and quick recovery and for his family as well.
“This is an unusual, isolated incident for our schools, and we are participating in a thorough investigation into what exactly happened. The employment of the one employee involved has been terminated. Until the investigation is complete, we are not able to make any further statements.”
Travon’s family remain upset and concerned over the incident.
“He goes to school and you think he was safe,” Grayson said. “It’s just really pretty bad.”
If convicted on all the charges, Korr faces the possibility of 85 years in prison.
School police took the initial report, but Baltimore City child abuse detectives are handling the investigation.
That poor child.