A Florida teacher was arrested after he picked up a student and violently tossed him into the hallway. Another student recorded the incident as Jeffrey Paffumi, 47, lifted the 14-year-old boy out of his chair, carried him across the classroom, slammed him into the door, and then threw him out into the hallway at Buddy Taylor Middle School. In the video, Paffumi can be heard asking the teen to "show me how tough you are."
Police said the student was playing music on his computer, and Paffumi asked him to turn the volume down. The student refused and called him a "cracka." When Paffumi went to mute the computer, the teen reportedly slapped his hand away.
“I then treated him like an unruly student and grabbed him safely so he couldn’t hurt himself or anybody else,” Paffumi told investigators.
The student told his parents what happened, and they called the police to file a report.
"I was infuriated. As a parent, when you send your kid to school, you expect for them to get an education at a safe, sound environment, and then I saw the video, and that really took me over the edge," the student's father, Keiondrae Woodside, told WESH 2 News.
After reviewing the video, Paffumi was taken into custody and charged with battery. He has been placed on leave by the school district, pending a full investigation.
"I have stressed to my executive team the importance of handling this investigation with the utmost seriousness it deserves," Flagler Schools Superintendent James Tager said in a statement. "I also understand a video shows only a portion of a particular incident, so this investigation will encompass the incident in totality and not just what was captured on a camera.”