Teacher fired after hitting student?

Published Nov. 15, 2013 12:00 a.m. ET

foxsports

If this is how poorly people in Texas are responding when their football teams get insulted, it’s fair to wonder how the folks in Florida are holding up.

A disturbing account is coming out of Beaumont, Texas, where 12 News reports that a 12-year-old was allegedly punched out by his teacher after the student insulted the teacher’s favorite football team.

The station doesn’t offer which football team spurred the assault, but it does make it pretty clear that the teacher — since fired — went way too far way too fast. Reginald Wells, a 4-foot-11, 80-pound seventh-grader, was talking to an assistant math teacher in the hallway at Willie Ray Smith Middle School when he made a joke about the teacher’s favorite football team, according to 12 News.

The teacher bumped Wells on the shoulder. Wells bumped him back. The teacher then hauled off and punched Wells in the face, sending the 12-year-old to the floor, out cold. He didn’t remember the incident when he came to, but others saw it.

“The left side of my face was numb,” he told 12 News. “... My lip hurt. ... My head was hurt, like it had been shaken.”

The teacher was quickly escorted from the school and fired, although Wells said the teacher did have a moment to say something to him.

“He said, ‘I can’t apologize for what I did. I was just having a bad day, and I just snapped,’ ” Wells said. Wells’ mother, Adrianne, was upset that the teacher was not arrested.

“It weighed heavy on my heart, because I’ve never put hands on my son,” she said.

She has since filed a report with local police and said she wants to press charges.