A 27-year-old substitute teacher who was arrested Thursday after knocking down a high school student in a fistfight caught on video in Las Vegas — allegedly after the student called the teacher a racial slur — was released without bail.
What are the details?
Re’Kwon Smith was booked into the Clark County Detention Center after his arrest Thursday, the Las Vegas Review-Journal reported, adding that Smith — shackled and in street clothes — appeared Friday afternoon in court in front of Hearing Master Daniel Westmeyer.
Image source: YouTube screenshot, composite
Westmeyer dropped Smith’s $9,000 bail and released him because he has no criminal history and was not determined to be a flight risk, KLAS-TV reported.
The station added that Smith’s release is contingent on him avoiding further arrests or citations, not returning to Valley High School, and having no contact with the involved student. Smith is due back in court May 27, KLAS said.
What’s the background?
Initially KLAS said in its video report, citing sources, that the student used a racial slur against the teacher and that Thursday’s fight allegedly started in a classroom when the teacher asked the student to leave after he used the N-word.
A clip of the fight in the KLAS video report shows the teacher knocking down the student after multiple punches:
But that’s not all that was caught on video.
A longer raw video of the fight shows the smaller student continually going after and swinging at the larger teacher, even though the teacher easily knocks the student to the floor not once but twice. Other students intervene, and the teacher walks away amid a throng of onlookers.
Another raw clip offers a close-up of the teacher knocking the student to the floor for the final time, hovering over him, hitting him in the head, and yelling, “Are you crazy?” After schoolmates bring the student to his feet, the teacher — whose shirt is torn open — hollers, “You lost your motherf**king mind, boy!” But the apparently dazed student hollers what sounds like, “You’re goin’ to jail, [N-word]!” at the teacher and actually laughs before a campus security monitor leads the student away.
Smith was charged with battery resulting in serious bodily harm, assault on a school pupil on school property/vehicle/activity, threatening to do bodily harm to a public school student, and interfering with a student from attending school, KLAS said.
The district hired Smith in November and assigned him to the high school, the station said, adding that police said the district will remove Smith from the substitute pool, and he’s no longer eligible to serve as a substitute in the district.
While KLAS said the student also was arrested, KNTV-TV said its sources indicated the student is recovering in a hospital.
Another student told KNTV that the student in the video — a close friend — is “in the hospital right now, but he said he doesn’t remember that good what happened … he has a concussion, and he has scratches all over his face.”
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Las vegas, Watch, Fistfight, Physical attack, High school student, Teacher, Arrests, Released without bail, Racial slur accusation, News