A Maryland tutor accused of slamming a 7-year-old student's face into a wall, breaking the boy's jaw and knocking out some of his teeth, has been arrested after school surveillance cameras captured the entire incident, police said.
Timothy Randall Korr, 25, of Baltimore, was arrested Wednesday and charged with first- and second-degree child abuse, first- and second-degree assault, reckless endangerment and neglect of a minor, according to the Baltimore Police Department.
Police were called Monday to Johns Hopkins Children's Center, where an ambulance had taken 7-year-old Trayvon Grayson for treatment. Trayvon's mother, Lateekqua Jackson, told WBAL-TV that when she arrived at City Springs Elementary School, she found her son in the back of the ambulance, crying, bloody and with his face swollen.
Korr was also there, blood on his clothing, Jackson said.
"The teacher told me that he put him over his shoulder and, when he put him down, he was bleeding," Jackson told the news station. "That's it. How can you tell somebody like that? He said he made a mistake. He said, 'I made a mistake. It was a mistake.' That's what he said."
Fox 45 in Baltimore previously reported that Korr told school officials he was carrying Trayvon out of the classroom for being disruptive when he lost his footing and Trayvon "hit himself" on the wall.
Baltimore police officials said on Wednesday, however, that child abuse detectives investigating the case obtained surveillance video from the school, which caught the incident in full.
Chief T.J. Smith, a spokesman for the police department, said during a news conference on Wednesday that Korr’s conduct was “absolutely inappropriate” and “despicable.”
“To watch a child be basically manhandled like a sack of potatoes is incomprehensible,” Smith said.
Reporters asked how much of the alleged crime the video captured, and Smith said it caught the entire assault.
“The video does show him carrying the child and slamming him up against the wall, and it’s very difficult to watch,” Smith said during a news conference. “We cringed a number of times as we watched the video.”
Smith said the video showed Trayvon’s body go limp afterward. No other faculty or staff were seen in the video, but other children were present when Trayvon was injured, he said.
“That video basically made our investigation pick up that much more,” Smith said. “It showed an assault, and it showed this 7-year-old boy in school being slammed about by this 25-year-old man, and I'm being nice by calling him a 25-year-old man.”
The video, which Smith called “disgusting” to watch, will not be made public, he said.
Jackson told WBAL-TV that her son will need surgery to repair some of the damage to his face and mouth. Besides the broken jaw, two of his teeth were knocked out and a third was driven into his gums.
He is also having nightmares about the incident, she said.
“He’s still shaking in his sleep, saying that he keeps having visions of (Korr) throwing him into a wall,” Jackson said.
Korr, who was initially suspended while police investigated the incident, has been fired by Baltimore Curriculum Project, the charter operator for City Springs Elementary.
If convicted of all charges, Korr faces 25 years in prison for each of the two child abuse charges, Smith said. The maximum penalty for first-degree assault, also a felony, is 15 years. The misdemeanor assault charge carries a maximum sentence of 10 years.
Reckless endangerment and neglect of a minor each carry a maximum sentence of five years.
About the Author
