Video: School Officer Attacked By Student While Attempting To Break Up Fight
SAN JACINTO (CBSLA) – A scuffle between a school police officer and a student led to the boy body slamming the cop outside a San Jacinto school.
The violent struggle between students and the campus resource officer in front of San Jacinto High School Friday was caught on camera.
KCAL9's Nicole Comstock spoke with a witness who rushed in to help the officer, as well as the mother of the boy seen in the video struggling with the cop.
San Jacinto High School had just let out when the officer started to break up a fight near campus. He was soon swarmed with students, and it appeared some of the students tried to pull off a boy who allegedly tackled the officer to the ground.
Substitute teacher Daniel Levya said that's when he intervened.
"That's when I just ran in there and started telling everybody to back off," he said.
Levya said he knew he had to take quick action when he saw one of the students take the officer's baton.
"Yeah, I took it off of his hands 'cause was pulled it off of him and he was trying to hide it, but I saw him so I just went in there and grabbed it," he said.
One student shed light on why the officer may have had his baton out in the first place. She said during the original fight between students, she witnessed a boy hitting a girl in the face.
"The security guard said, 'You don't touch a woman, you're gonna be arrested.' And that's when the student was pushing the security guard," she said.
The officer then tried to subdue that student.
"He wouldn't go down, so he got his baton and hit his legs" she said.
The student's mother said over the phone that her son was trying to break up the original fight when the officer drew the baton on him. She said her son wrestled the baton away from the officer, but she would expect any young person in the same situation to do the same thing.
The police department said they told all of the students to disperse during the fight and they were not complying with those orders,
The school district sent out messages to the parents of those involved, telling them to have a discussion with their children about the incident.