A teacher has been jailed for 30 days after she was filmed kicking a young student to punish her for crawling inside a bookshelf. Crystal Smith, 55, was also ordered to complete a year of probation at her sentencing hearing in Belle Plaine, Kansas, earlier this month.

Smith was caught on surveillance camera attacking the kindergarten student in an empty library at Bluejacket-Flint Elementary School in Shawnee, Kansas. The youngster crawled into an empty shelf during the February 2019 incident, prompting Smith to yank her back out, and then kick her as she lay huddled on the floor.

Smith’s assault on the child did not cause the youngster serious injuries, and she was able to talk out of the library by herself moments later. The rogue teacher made no attempt to tell anyone what had happened, with the attack only coming to light after the child told her mother when she was picked up after school.

Smith denied kicking the girl, but was later exposed as a liar after school bosses uncovered the surveillance footage of the attack. She was subsequently fired from her job, with her unnamed victim’s family also filing a civil lawsuit over the kick.

Family attorney Dan Zmijewski said the attack had left the victim terrified of going to school. He told KCTV: ‘She is really young so it’s pretty devastating to her.

‘“At first she was completely, totally terrified of schools and libraries because it happened in the library … that is unfortunately one of the safest places you think you can go as a child.

‘It required her to get therapy as a result of all this.’

Get in touch with our news team by emailing us at [email protected]

For more stories like this, check our news page

Source: Read Full Article