# Teacher attacked by parent in NY. **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [April 17, 2015, 3:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/teacher-attacked-by-parent-in-ny/717918 "2015-04-17T15:50:27Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 14\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![aceplace57](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aceplace57/32/3500_2.png) [@aceplace57](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aceplace57)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2015, 3:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/teacher-attacked-by-parent-in-ny/717918/1 "2015-04-17T15:50:27Z")
A new low for the schools and out of control violent students. They’ve brought in security guards and even metal detectors to make schools safe. This still happened. The lack of respect and self control extends not just to the students but to many of their parents too. It wasn’t just this parent and her daughter. Apparently a few other students got in a few kicks too. Just for the hell of it. I guess actually defending their teacher from this attack was too much to ask. The people brave enough to teach in public schools today deserve a lot of admiration and credit. > **[L.I. teacher Catherine Engelhardt knocked out by irate mom in hallway...](https://www.nydailynews.com/2015/04/17/li-teacher-catherine-engelhardt-knocked-out-by-irate-mom-in-hallway-beatdown-at-hempstead-middle-school-cops/)** > > An irate mom and her teenage niece were arrested after choking, punching and kicking a teacher unconscious inside a middle school in Hempstead, L.I., officials said. Annika McKenzie, 34, allegedly … > **[ABC7 Eyewitness News - WABC-TV New York](https://abc7ny.com/)** > > New York's source for breaking news and live streaming video online. Covering New York City, New Jersey, Long Island and all of the greater New York Area. > [@](#): > > An irate mom and her teenage niece were arrested after choking, punching and kicking a teacher unconscious inside a middle school in Hempstead, L.I., officials said. > > Annika McKenzie, 34, allegedly ambushed a veteran math teacher at Alverta B. Gray Schultz Middle School on Wednesday after claiming the instructor “put her hands on” on McKenzie’s 12-year-old daughter that day, Hempstead Village police said. > [@](#): > > Authorities say the teacher was shoved against the wall, placed in a headlock and thrown to the floor, where she was kicked and punched by several students, including McKenzie’s 14-year-old niece. The teen was arrested, and both suspects are being charged with second-degree assault. McKenzie also faces a charge of strangulation. ---
**Author:** ![Small\_Hen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ad7895/32.png) [@Small\_Hen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Small_Hen)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2015, 3:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/teacher-attacked-by-parent-in-ny/717918/2 "2015-04-17T15:58:47Z")
So, the teacher “Put hands on,” her daughter. I’m sorry, if you can’t get any more descriptive than that, I’m going to have to call bullshit on your motive. If the teacher hit her daughter, or restrained her, or pushed her against a wall, or touched her sexually, then mom would have said so. “Put hands on her” makes it sound like the teacher touched her on the shoulder and the kid (and mom) lost her shit. ---
**Author:** ![kayaker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kayaker/32/441_2.png) [@kayaker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kayaker)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2015, 4:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/teacher-attacked-by-parent-in-ny/717918/3 "2015-04-17T16:06:31Z")
Some people just have a problem with math. ---
**Author:** ![Richard\_Parker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/35a633/32.png) [@Richard\_Parker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Richard_Parker)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2015, 4:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/teacher-attacked-by-parent-in-ny/717918/4 "2015-04-17T16:10:48Z")
> [@Small\_Hen](#): > > So, the teacher “Put hands on,” her daughter. I’m sorry, if you can’t get any more descriptive than that, I’m going to have to call bullshit on your motive. If the teacher hit her daughter, or restrained her, or pushed her against a wall, or touched her sexually, then mom would have said so. “Put hands on her” makes it sound like the teacher touched her on the shoulder and the kid (and mom) lost her shit. Huh? The reporter probably didn’t even talk to the mother. They just reported what the police told them to report. Most likely this parent just flew off the handle. Though the involvement of other students sure suggests something more pernicious that “touched her on the shoulder” happened. ---
**Author:** ![Scumpup](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ce73a5/32.png) [@Scumpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scumpup)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2015, 4:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/teacher-attacked-by-parent-in-ny/717918/5 "2015-04-17T16:21:24Z")
> [@Richard\_Parker](#): > > Though the involvement of other students sure suggests something more pernicious that “touched her on the shoulder” happened. No, it doesn’t. ---
**Author:** ![Richard\_Parker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/35a633/32.png) [@Richard\_Parker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Richard_Parker)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2015, 4:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/teacher-attacked-by-parent-in-ny/717918/6 "2015-04-17T16:23:06Z")
nm ---
**Author:** ![Peremensoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ce7236/32.png) [@Peremensoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peremensoe)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2015, 4:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/teacher-attacked-by-parent-in-ny/717918/7 "2015-04-17T16:24:02Z")
It doesn’t? The other participants were just ready to attack at any time, for no reason? Does this kind of thing happen routinely in schools these days? ---
**Author:** ![Scumpup](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ce73a5/32.png) [@Scumpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scumpup)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2015, 4:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/teacher-attacked-by-parent-in-ny/717918/8 "2015-04-17T16:37:47Z")
> [@Peremensoe](#): > > It doesn’t? The other participants were just ready to attack at any time, for no reason? Does this kind of thing happen routinely in schools these days? Every school? No. Even a cursory reading or the article indicates that before this incident there were concerns that something was going to happen at that school. ---
**Author:** ![Small\_Hen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ad7895/32.png) [@Small\_Hen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Small_Hen)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2015, 4:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/teacher-attacked-by-parent-in-ny/717918/9 "2015-04-17T16:47:43Z")
> [@Richard\_Parker](#): > > Huh? The reporter probably didn’t even talk to the mother. They just reported what the police told them to report. > > Most likely this parent just flew off the handle. Though the involvement of other students sure suggests something more pernicious that “touched her on the shoulder” happened. > [@](#): > > …McKenzie’s attorney, Donald Rollock, claiming the teacher had “put her hands on” McKenzie’s 12-year-old daughter earlier in the day. Not the police, but the mother’s lawyer. Had the teacher done anything approaching violence toward that child, I’d bet the lawyer would make sure the whole world knew. And involvement from the other students indicates to me a mob mentality, not a legit grievance. My sister, a special needs teacher, had a parent who would routinely threaten her with violence for daring to do things like tell his son to “sit down.” Actual violence, like saying he was going to beat the shit out of her for disrespecting his kid. And if you want to know why she never called the cops about it, it’s because in a small welfare town like the one where she worked, the cops gave not one fuck. The stories she told me of that shithole place were shocking. I have no problem believing a mother attacked a teacher for a low grade, or for no reason at all. ---
**Author:** ![Monty](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/monty/32/47_2.png) [@Monty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Monty)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2015, 5:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/teacher-attacked-by-parent-in-ny/717918/10 "2015-04-17T17:31:59Z")
Heck, I have no problem whatsoever believing that the so-called inciting incident (“She put her hands on…”) never happened at all, but rather that the niece lied about that. ---
**Author:** ![Richard\_Parker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/35a633/32.png) [@Richard\_Parker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Richard_Parker)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2015, 6:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/teacher-attacked-by-parent-in-ny/717918/11 "2015-04-17T18:04:35Z")
> [@Small\_Hen](#): > > Not the police, but the mother’s lawyer. Ah. The first article quoted the police saying the exact same words, so I assumed that’s where you had gotten it. Does seem odd that the lawyer would decide to talk about the case, but not offer anything more specific than that odd phrase which was also used by the police. ---
**Author:** ![aceplace57](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aceplace57/32/3500_2.png) [@aceplace57](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aceplace57)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2015, 7:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/teacher-attacked-by-parent-in-ny/717918/12 "2015-04-17T19:41:47Z")
My wife and I have met several teachers through my church and become friends. One of them teaches high school physics in a small town just outside Little Rock. He’s lucky that most of his students are prepping for college. A lot of them come into his class unable to even manipulate an equation. You know one thing, rearrange the equation and solve for what you don’t know. They had their algebra classes but just the practical nuts and bolts of math elude them. He’s spends class time every year teaching these kids math skills they should have learned two years earlier. He has to before they can even think about working a physics problem. A close friend of my wife teaches in the Little Rock public schools. Some of the stories she’s told. Kids getting up in the middle of class and just walking around (ADD/ADHD). She can’t test some of them. They are in her class but they take their tests in a special needs resource center. Some of the kids just don’t respect authority at all. Telling them to stop talking or sit down doesn’t work. Expelling a problem kid for any length of time is really difficult these days. It makes it difficult for the kids that actually want to study and prepare for college. ---
**Author:** ![Zebra](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/c0e974/32.png) [@Zebra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zebra)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2015, 8:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/teacher-attacked-by-parent-in-ny/717918/13 "2015-04-17T20:26:20Z")
Probably the other kids that joined the attack are friends of the one girl. Basically a gang. ---
**Author:** ![racepug](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f1d935/32.png) [@racepug](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/racepug)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2015, 8:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/teacher-attacked-by-parent-in-ny/717918/14 "2015-04-17T20:35:00Z")
I hope those lowlifes (the mother and the kids, alike) get the book thrown at 'em. Revolting.