Substitute instructor faraway from Minnesota classroom after reenacting George Floyd homicide | EUROtoday

A police officer working as an alternative instructor has been banned from a faculty in Minnesota after placing a scholar’s head on the hood of a automobile throughout an alleged reenactment of the 2020 homicide of George Floyd.

The man, who has not been named, was additionally accused of a sequence of actions together with “racially harmful” and sexist feedback to college students who additionally “spoke in disturbing detail about dead bodies he had seen.”

The staffing agency that placed him at Woodbury High School said Wednesday that he also no longer works for them. South Washington County Schools officials said an investigation was underway.

The man was serving as a substitute English teacher on Monday when he told students in four separate 10th and 12th grade classes that they might want to hear about his life as a police officer, school officials said in a letter to students, families and staff.

Floyd, a Black man, died after a white officer pinned his neck to the pavement for nine and a half minutes despite his dying pleas of “I can’t breathe.” Children were among the concerned witnesses, including a teen who captured the incident on a video widely viewed on social media.

The officer, Derek Chauvin, was convicted of murder. Floyd’s death touched off protests that sometimes turned violent, testing the leadership of Governor Tim Walz.

The South Washington County Schools district says it serves about 18,700 students at 25 schools in seven communities, with some 37 percent of them identifying as a race other than white.

“I particularly need to acknowledge racial hurt that occurred when the substitute instructor reenacted the susceptible restraint that resulted within the homicide of George Floyd,” Woodbury High principal Sarah Sorenson-Wanger wrote in her letter.

“This reported habits is reprehensible. I’m embarrassed, and I’m sorry this occurred to our college students. We will take as a lot time as college students have to hear and create open house for brave conversations that result in therapeutic, motion and schooling.

“The reported actions will not be, and won’t, be tolerated at Woodbury High School or in South Washington County Schools,” the principal wrote.

Besides the re-enactment of the actions that led to the death of Floyd, students also complained that the substitute teacher “repeatedly made racially dangerous feedback,” “instructed sexist jokes,” said “cops can be one of the best criminals” because “they know get away with stuff,” and “said that police brutality isn’t actual,” according to the letter.

The man is now prohibited from setting foot on district property and the incident has been reported to the Minnesota Department of Education, the state teacher licensing board and the Woodbury Police Department.

According to the letter from the school, he was not a police officer in Minnesota.

As a substitute, he was hired through Teachers on Call, a staffing agency that’s part of the national Kelly Education employment network. The company said the man passed comprehensive background checks before he was placed.

“The actions of this particular person had been unacceptable, and the substitute instructor is not an worker of Teachers on Call,” company spokesperson Danielle Nixon said in a statement.

“We acknowledge the numerous public belief positioned in us to make sure our substitute educators keep a protected studying surroundings. We have a zero-tolerance coverage for any type of violent, aggressive, or dangerous habits.”

Citing the ongoing investigation, she added that Teachers on Call is not releasing any additional information on its former employee.

Woodbury Police Chief Jason Posel said in a statement Wednesday that his department is “disturbed by the preliminary info of what occurred” and will investigate this incident to the fullest extent, while showing compassion to the students impacted.”

A police spokesman later added that officers didn’t know but which legislation enforcement company employs the substitute instructor.