Ex-Dallas teacher’s aide accused of slamming 7-year-old special-education child to ground
.jpg "A former teacher’s aide in the Dallas school district was arrested Thursday and accused of slamming a special-education elementary student to the ground.")
A former teacher’s aide in the Dallas school district remained in custody on Friday after she was arrested and accused of slamming a 7-year-old special-education student to the ground.
Authorities arrested 54-year-old Deborah Thompson on Thursday on a charge of injury to a child with intent to cause bodily injury.
Thompson was in the Dallas County Jail on Friday with bond set at $35,000, according to jail records.
She worked as an aide at Larry G. Smith Elementary School in Dallas ISD at the time of the incident last month.
The child’s foster parents told Star-Telegram media partner WFAA-TV that classroom security footage from Sept. 23 shows Thompson pick up and slam the 7-year-old boy, who has autism and a learning delay.
After an internal investigation, school district officials told WFAA, Thompson resigned three days after the incident. Dallas ISD officials didn’t make any additional statement.
The child’s foster parents told WFAA that they were shown security footage of the incident on Monday and decided to press charges.
“She literally just picked up my son and slammed him onto the floor,” said foster mother Brianna, who didn’t want to use her last name. “You can hear him crying in the footage.”
The foster parents said the video shows their son swinging his backpack around non-threateningly before Thompson grabs him.
“She stands up and tells him to stop,” foster father Albert told WFAA. “He goes to swing it again, but before he gets the chance, she picks him up and slams him to the ground. His face goes right into the ground because she’s holding his hands behind his back.”
The parents told WFAA that they’re frustrated because they received little guidance from the district on how to proceed. Their son has a bruise on his face but is expected to be OK.
“He came home and kept saying that his head hurt,” Brianna told the TV station. “Kids like my son, most are nonverbal and can’t come home and tell us something happened to them.”
