An elementary school teacher in Southeast Washington has been charged with assault and attempted cruelty to children after police said he grabbed a third-grader so hard that it left a swollen mark in the shape of a handprint on the boy’s arm.
Cameron Paul Lewis, 29, of Hyattsville, Md., has been freed pending trial and has a hearing scheduled in D.C. Superior Court on Jan. 11. An arrest affidavit filed by D.C. police said the principal of Turner Elementary School suspended Lewis after the 8-year-old boy’s mother filed a complaint.
The school is in the Douglas community at 3264 Stanton Road SE, near Alabama Avenue.
D.C. schools spokeswoman Michelle Lerner issued a brief statement saying that the school system “takes school security and student safety very seriously” and that the school’s staff “followed all protocols in this incident.”
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Lerner said Lewis is no longer in the classroom.
Lewis did not return calls seeking comment on Tuesday morning; his attorney could not be reached.
The incident occurred Nov. 30, and an arrest warrant was filed Thursday. D.C. police did not inform the public about the arrest until Tuesday and did not offer an explanation for the delay.
The boy’s mother called The Washington Post the day the incident occurred. She said she had been called by a school administrator who said her son had been injured and was being treated by the nurse. She went to the school and said she discovered that her son’s injuries were more severe than she was led to believe.
“The teacher told me to leave the room, and I didn’t leave,” the mother said her son told her. The boy said, “The teacher’s handprint is on my arm.” The mother said she didn’t feel as if administrators took the complaint seriously so she called 911 to have a police officer respond.
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The arrest affidavit filed in D.C. Superior Court said police arrived at the school about 1:30 p.m. It said that Lewis told the mother that her son was “talking in the classroom” and was “not responding to his text.” Lewis told the mother “that he may have squeezed his arm a little too hard because it left a mark,” according to the court document.
The police officer wrote in the affidavit that he saw a swollen mark on the boy’s upper right arm and that it was in the shape of a handprint. Lewis told police that he “became angry” with the boy “and grabbed his arm and walked him out of the classroom.” The boy told police that he cried because of the pain.
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