BUFFALO (WBEN) - Dueling accusations, fears and criticisms are dominating the conversation surrounding an incident at McKinley High School, in which a 14-year-old male student has been allegedly charged with assaulting a teacher.
Parents and officials are concerned about the narrative that the incident has created, and some held a press conference yesterday to discuss it.
District Parent Coordinating Council President Sam Radford also, called out the teacher's union for their handling of the incident.
"For the teacher's union to come out and slander this young man while telling only half the story, not giving the other half of the story that led to the teacher being suspended with pay, it's unfair, and I think it sets us back," said Radford.
Radford explained that from what he's hearing, the teacher is also at fault for the incident.
"The teacher did not follow the district policy on how to intervene when it comes to taking a child's cell phone," he said. "At least our understanding is that the teacher reacted negatively to the student, and the student reacted negatively to the teacher. The student reacted inappropriately; the student should not have acted that way, but the teacher also acted inappropriately. The teacher did not follow the district policy on how to intervene in that situation, so consequently, something took place, in our opinion, that should have never taken place in the first place. In this case, the child ended up with a felony assault charge based on the teacher inappropriately engaging him, and now he's going to face that kind of consequence."
However, President of the Buffalo Teacher's Federation Phil Rumore addressed both the allegations of this portraying black males in a negative light, as well as the stance against the teacher's union for only telling one side of the story. Rumore didn't buy it.
"No one has said anything race in this. The only people that are bringing race into this issue are the people that held the press conference," said Rumore.
He then addressed whether the teacher was at fault.
"The teacher followed protocol exactly," Rumore continued. "And I would point out that this is not the first time that this student had been a problem. Right before the winter break, the student had caused such a commotion that they went into partial lockdown."
Claudine Ewing from Channel 2 has been a lead investigator in this case, and she addressed the accusations of negatively portraying black males by saying the allegations are objectively wrong.
"Sam Radford's concern is that the images that are being portrayed are the images of black males," said Ewing. "We never revealed the race of the student; we never revealed anything about the teacher - what he taught, what his role was at the school. We were kind of taken aback when we saw a press release that came out from the District Parent Coordinating Council saying that the parents were going to counter racist attack on the McKinley principal, and the student and teacher altercation because race wasn't even part of this."