Coach attacks teen from behind and chokes him at Michigan school, security video shows
.png "A Michigan coach has been fired after surveillance video showed him attack a student from behind and choke him.")
A Michigan coach has been fired after surveillance video showed him attack a student from behind and choke him, according to local news outlets and the school district.
“I was angry,” Steve Moon, father of the 14-year-old student, told WXYZ.
The coach at Ypsilanti Middle School told the student to do push ups on June 4, according to WWJ-TV. But because of an injury the student couldn’t do them. That’s when he said the coach attacked him, the outlet reported.
“My initial reaction when I saw the video: I was horrified,” his mom Yolanda Ellis told the news outlet. “I could not believe this coach would do something like that to him. How I’m feeling now, is I am feeling let down.”
The video below was posted on social media and shared with news outlets.
“We just recently got (our son) where he has been social and working on his people skills. Since the incident, he has not been outside. He didn’t want to go back and finish his school days,” Ellis told WJBK.
In one video that reportedly shows the incident, you can see the student walking past the coach, who is sitting down, and the two have a brief exchange. The student walks through a door and shortly after the coach walks in behind him.
Less than a minute later, the two walk back into the hallway and can be seen talking, but the video has no sound.
The coach can then be seen pushing the student and the student pushes him back.
In a second video from a different angle of the alleged altercation shared online, the student is seen walking away from the coach when the coach runs up behind him, takes an article of clothing and wraps it around his neck. He then begins to choke him with it for about 15 seconds.
“As soon as we were made aware of the incident, we took swift and decisive action. We immediately contacted social services authorities and began cooperating with local law enforcement. Such actions are absolutely unacceptable and will not be tolerated in our district. Effective immediately, the employee is no longer working at the school district, and is not permitted to enter school property or attend school activities,” Ypsilanti Community Schools Superintendent Alena Zachery-Ross said in a statement posted to Facebook on June 10.
“I’m just highly disturbed and angry,” Moon told WWJ-TV. “It’s a letdown that this man that [my son] looked up to failed him like that. He was the last person that I would expect to do that and on the other side of that, he is the last kid who deserves something like that.”
The family’s attorney, Jordan Vahdat told WJBK they plan to send the school district a litigation notice and request a meeting.
Washtenaw County Prosecutor’s Office told WXYZ the coach is charged with assault with intent to do great bodily harm by strangulation and assault and battery.
Ypsilanti is a 35-mile drive west of Detroit.
This story was originally published June 12, 2024 at 4:10 PM with the headline "Coach attacks teen from behind and chokes him at Michigan school, security video shows."
