SASCHA WIL­SON

Se­nior Re­porter

Po­lice are ex­pect­ed to com­plete the in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to the fight be­tween a teacher and a stu­dent at Moru­ga Sec­ondary School by the end of this week.

As­sis­tant Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice South/Cen­tral Wayne Mys­tar said the file would then be sub­mit­ted to the le­gal team for in­struc­tions on how to pro­ceed with charges.

He al­so dis­missed a so­cial me­dia re­port claim­ing that the teacher had died.

Mys­tar told Guardian Me­dia that they have col­lect­ed the med­ical re­ports and con­duct­ed sev­er­al in­ter­views, but one state­ment re­mains out­stand­ing.

In­ves­ti­ga­tors have in­ter­viewed the teacher and the 16-year-old stu­dent, as well as eye­wit­ness­es, and record­ed state­ments.

The fight oc­curred on Jan­u­ary 17 in the school’s au­di­to­ri­um, and was record­ed by stu­dents on their mo­bile phones, with videos up­loaded to so­cial me­dia.

In the footage, the male teacher and the school­boy are seen trad­ing blows be­fore both end up on the floor. Stu­dents and adults made sev­er­al at­tempts to stop the fight.

In one video, the stu­dent com­plained that the teacher had cuffed him in the face, say­ing, "I’m not tak­ing that."

An­oth­er video shows the teacher bleed­ing from his nose, with a bruised cheek and lip. Both sought med­ical at­ten­tion, and the stu­dent was sus­pend­ed.

In a state­ment hours af­ter the fight, Moru­ga/Table­land MP Michelle Ben­jamin de­scribed the in­ci­dent as trou­bling and deeply alarm­ing. She said it high­light­ed broad­er is­sues with­in the school, which has a his­to­ry of vi­o­lence, ten­sion, and aca­d­e­m­ic un­der­per­for­mance.

"Over the past few months, I have re­ceived trou­bling re­ports from con­cerned par­ents and stu­dents al­leg­ing in­ci­dents of vic­tim­i­sa­tion by cer­tain teach­ers at the school. While these claims are yet to be sub­stan­ti­at­ed, they paint a wor­ry­ing pic­ture of an en­vi­ron­ment that may no longer feel safe or con­ducive to learn­ing for many of our chil­dren," Ben­jamin said.

Urg­ing in­ter­ven­tion from the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion and oth­er au­thor­i­ties, she called for an in­de­pen­dent in­ves­ti­ga­tion, coun­selling and in­ter­ven­tion pro­grammes for stu­dents and teach­ers, as well as the re­view and strength­en­ing of dis­ci­pli­nary and con­flict res­o­lu­tion mea­sures.

Moru­ga po­lice are in­ves­ti­gat­ing.