OMAHA, Neb. — A Council Bluffs high school teacher has been jailed on accusations that she put a special needs student in a choke hold.
According to court documents, witnesses said it isn’t the first time the teacher has done it.
Donna M. Thomas, 53, turned herself into police on Tuesday after the Pottawattamie County Attorney filed criminal charges.
According to court documents obtained by KETV NewsWatch 7, Thomas has more than 21 years of teaching experience in Iowa. But in this case, Council Bluffs police said she went too far in restraining a Thomas Jefferson High School student.
The father of the 15-year-old boy, who has autism, reported the incident to police in November after he said he was alerted by a school worker.
According to a court affidavit, the school paraprofessional called the father to tell him she had “witnessed Donna Thomas become overly aggressive with the child.”
The paraprofessional said in the affidavit, “There were two or three occasions when I saw her head-lock him … she pinned him. I’m like, what is she doing? I was even in shock.”
Another witnesses in the affidavit described the restraint as a choke hold.
Police asked the witness if Thomas was aggravated during the time the alleged incident happened.
“Oh yeah,” the witness said, according to the affidavit.
Police asked the witness if Thomas was angry at the same.
“Yeah,” the witness replied.
The witness told police that the teacher was “breaking certain boundaries and rules. By putting a child in a headlock, that is breaking rules.”
Police Sgt. Chad Meyers said the reports suggested the boy was being picked on, and that a line was crossed.
“Maybe that the physical restraint techniques went a little bit far,” Meyers said.
Council Bluffs school officials said they couldn’t comment on the issue because it’s a personnel matter. They did say that Thomas has been on paid administrative leave since November.
As one article commentator put it:
Iowa put a legislative restriction on reasonable intervention. The Iowa legislature is not authorized by either State law or the U.S. Constitution to limit a person’s right to defend themselves or another by any means reasonable regardless of the mental condition of the actor. That’s why there’s the 5th and 14th amendments — you know the ones “all men are created equal.” If the physical intervention training provided to this teacher was insufficient to maintain safety during foreseeable circumstances, and as a result the teacher had to resort to a choke hold because, for instance, she (1) was not trained; (2) was not trained in a reasonable method of intervention effective to maintain safety; or (3) told (by the legislature or the school) that she could not use a method more reasonable or less restrictive than a choke hold when there is a reasonable and/or less restrictive method than a choke hold that would have been both reasonable and effective to maintain safety — the school (and even the State), not the teacher, may well be the one liable. See Supreme Court Ruling in Canton v. Harris. Full Story.
Tags: choke hold, IOWA, school