San Antonio Independent School District Officer Joshua Kehm was captured on video brutally body-slamming a 12-year-old girl who attends Rhodes Middle School.
WATCH:
San Antonio’s News 4 talked with sixth-grader Janissa Valdez and her mother:
"Do you remember it?" reporter Emily Baucum asks.
"No," Janissa responds.
She says the kids in the hallway had been anticipating a fight between her and another girl.
"I was going up to her to tell her let's go somewhere else so we could talk but that's when the cop thought I was going at her," Janissa says.
Her mother is angry and frustrated:
"You could just hear where she hits the ground. And it's nothing but concrete, cement," her mother Gloria Valdez says. "She wasn't moving. She was just knocked out. I wanted answers and nobody could give me answers. I contacted the vice-principal. I talked to the officer. He did what he had to do at the moment - those were his words.”
Officer Joshua Kehm is now under investigation:
The officer responded after two students began arguing outside Rhodes Middle School on March 29, school district spokeswoman Leslie Price said.
“The video is very disturbing,” Price said, adding that the department has launched a formal investigation into the incident. “The officer was placed on leave this morning.”
That’s paid leave while the district investigates.