| Updated: 9/16/2009 1:45 pm |
Published: 9/01/2009 9:12 pm |
A father in Vilonia says a principal choked his son after the teen got into a fight. Now the father wants his boy to be able to go back to class and an apology from the principal. But those with the district say high school principal Ed Sellers did what he had to, to keep order in the school.
Senior Chaney Turman is home from school this week, suspended for five days after getting into a fight with a sophomore in the school cafeteria last Thursday.
"What I did was wrong. I should not have started anything in the cafeteria that day. The boy and I, we've made amends," explains Chaney.
But his father says what happened afterward has him upset. He says the principal stopped his son while he was reporting to the office.
"Mr. Sellers reached over, grabbed my son by the lanyard where the school ID is, slid it up like a collar, and grabbed my son and started lifting him up. My son was telling him it was choking him, that it hurt," says Greg Turman.
Turman says Sellers also covered Chaney's mouth and nose and grabbed him by the face.
"This was an open, public place so I rather doubt that someone is going to choke someone in front of all those people," says Vilonia superintendent Frank Mitchell.
Mitchell said the surveillance video doesn't show much but he talked to faculty who saw what happened. "From the report I got from the other administrators present there was a situation where he was justified in restraining a student. That's what I have to go on."
So Principal Sellers, who declined an interview, faces no disciplinary action. But this may not be over. Mr. Turman and his son went to the Vilonia Police Department to file a police report, not as an act of retaliation, but to keep a record of what happened last Thursday. Now the prosecutors office is reviewing the case.
"Vilonia is a great school. Mr. Sellers is not a bad person in my eyes," Greg Turman said. "I just want him to man up and say 'I lost my cool,' everybody does."
"When I go back to school I would like to shake his hand and get this behind us," says Chaney.
Authorities charged Cheney Turman with disorderly conduct and his suspension is up at the end of the week. At this point Principal Sellers faces no charges. Superintendent Mitchell says the videotape doesn't show much of what happened between Principal Sellers and Turman. He says he couldn't show the tape to us out of concern for the other students in the video.
