HORRIFYING video has emerged of a seven-year-old special needs student being beaten in a sick “fight club” allegedly facilitated by a teacher.
Two children were seen in the clip wrestling on the ground, one punching the other in the face as an adult voice said: “You get him.”
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The child pummelling the other could be heard saying, “Don’t mess with me”, as his victim cried and curled up into the fetal position.
An adult man, alleged to be a teacher at George Washington Carver School, filmed the shocking ordeal and encouraged the violence from behind the camera – even moving to get a close-up shot of the brawl.
Indianapolis woman Corrie Horan, the furious mother of the young victim, accused teacher Julious Johnican of “orchestrating a reprehensible ‘fight club’ type of discipline within his classroom over a span of three months” in a lawsuit she launched against his school.
The mum became aware of the “fight club” and the brawl involving her son, who has ADHD, when the teacher accidentally showed her the footage of him being beaten, the suit alleged.
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But she claimed her son had been complaining of bullying and abuse in the classroom as far back as August 2023.
The lawsuit, obtained by Fox 59 and reported by New York Post, stated: “Within the first few weeks of school, O.D. (Ms Horan’s son) began to come home sad, upset, behaviourally dysregulated, and reporting abuse, bullying, and classroom harassment.”
In reference to the “fight club”, the suit added: “In this horrifying setup, Johnican not only permitted but incited and facilitated other students to engage in acts of violence against seven-year-old O.D.”
The lawsuit claimed there were “at least three beatings and various forms of physical harm and bullying” within the classroom, “for his own amusement or as a deeply disturbed disciplinary measure”.
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Teacher Johnican was alleged to have encouraged behaviour which went beyond “mere pushing or shoving” and extended to orchestrating “physical assaults”.
According to the lawsuit, the seven-year-old victim was “thrown to the ground, struck, slapped and hit in the head repeatedly”.
The suit continued: “On two occasions it is reported that he (Mr Johnican) held O.D. while allowing other students to punch, hit, and kick him.”
Ms Horan further alleged that Johnican made “continuous threats” to her son and subjected him to “deliberate humiliation”.
Indianapolis Public Schools, a defendant in the lawsuit said that it “does not tolerate the type of behaviour alleged in the complaint and takes reports of potential abuse and neglect seriously”.
The distraught mum claimed that the violence had led her son to develop “a profound anxiety”, adding that his grades had fallen and that he had begun to “plead” with her to let him skip school.
Substitute teacher Pardeep Dahliwal was reportedly also present in the classroom during the alleged attacks.
The seven-year-old child allegedly told his mum that “a teacher working with Mr Johnican said that special needs students were demonically possessed”.
He also claimed that staff had told him he was “bad” and “holy water needed to be poured on him” to “cure him of his evil”.
Ms Horan alleged she had arranged meetings with Mr Johnican to discuss her son’s claims – but the teacher “dismissed” them and “indicated that [her son] was lying or mentally ill”.
The mum said she received a call from the school in September 2023 and was informed that her son could not calm down.
She said he was “hysterical” when she spoke to him over the phone and she left work to go to the school, where she found him “upset, traumatised, and shaken”.
He and another student had been looking at something on Mr Johnican’s phone when she arrived, the mum claimed, but they “immediately” put it away when she approached them.
Ms Horan’s son allegedly told her as she was leaving the school that “he was being abused in school” and that, “on Johnican’s instructions, another pupil had slammed his head down on a desk, pulled him to the floor, and then hit him repeatedly in the head.”
… on Johnican’s instructions, another pupil had slammed [the child’s] head down on a desk, pulled him to the floor, and then hit him repeatedly in the head
Ms Horan’s lawsuit alleges
The lawsuit claimed the mum spoke with vice-principal Finae Rent that very day, but she did not launch an investigation or provide any additional information.
It stated: “She was repeatedly informed that it was her child who was disruptive, lying, and that this was a sign of a disordered personality in the child and related to his ADHD.”
Later in the year, on November 1, Mr Johnican accidentally showed Mr Horan a video of a fight involving her son during a parent-teacher conference, the mum claimed.
He had allegedly intended to show her a video of the “classroom environment”.
The mum said she heard him in the video “instigating and encouraging the beating of their disabled seven-year-old child”.
She contacted the Indiana Department of Child Services (DCS), which launched an investigation, and the school secretary was informed.
The lawsuit claimed that substitute teacher Pardeep Dahliwal defended the fights to Principal Mary Kapcoe and said of the children, several of whom have special needs: “They’re bad kids, that’s what you do.”
Mr Horan is demanding a jury trial to get justice for her son – as well as an unspecified amount of money.
Indianapolis Public Schools said “the teacher was removed from the classroom and suspended” when it “learned of the teacher’s conduct”.
It added: “The teacher had no further contact with students and is no longer employed by IPS.
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“Because this matter is the subject of pending litigation, it is inappropriate to comment further on our investigation of this matter.”
The system claimed it did not know about the fights until October 30, when Ms Horan emailed Principal Kapcoe, and that the principal “immediately contacted DCS and IPS Human Resources”.
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Source: Sun
