NAACP seeks firing of school worker

The Seattle branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People is urging Seattle Public Schools to fire an employee involved in a May 4 altercation with a Cleveland High School student.

The branch's education chairwoman, Sakara Remmu, said a computer-support analyst assigned to the school grabbed the 14-year-old student by the throat and held him against a wall. The student had been involved in horseplay with another student when the school employee intervened.

The NAACP has scheduled a news conference for today to demand that the employee, who is on administrative leave while the district investigates the incident, not be allowed to return to work.

The Seattle Times is not naming the employee because the district has not determined whether he acted inappropriately.

Seattle Public Schools spokeswoman Patti Spencer said she could not comment on the district's investigation or when it would be finished. The employee could not be reached for comment.

The student, who is African American, was arrested by Seattle police after the incident but was later released to his mother. The Seattle Times is not naming the student because no charges have been filed.

The employee is white, according to the NAACP.

According to accounts of the incident by Remmu and in a police report, the run-in started when the employee asked the teen and another student to stop play-fighting in a hallway. Witnesses told police the student tried to walk around the employee in the hallway but the employee blocked his way.

The student pushed the employee and tried again to leave, but the employee grabbed the student by his backpack, according to the report. The teen then pulled on the employee's collar, and the employee dragged him toward a stairwell, the report says.

The struggle continued and both stumbled down a flight of stairs, still on their feet, onto a landing, according to the report.

Accounts of what happened next differ.

In the police report, the computer-support analyst says the student grabbed him by the throat, scratched him and tried to punch him. The teen told police he had pushed the computer-support analyst to try to get clear of him and didn't mean to scratch the man.

Remmu said the teen never tried to punch the computer-support analyst and that the analyst held the teen against the stairwell wall, hands on his throat, and screamed at him.

A security guard stepped in to break up the two. Cleveland's principal asked that the student not be arrested, the police report states.

Police are continuing their investigation of the teen's actions.

Remmu said the computer-support analyst has been involved in altercations with other African-American students, and she believes there is a pattern. The district would not respond to the claims.

Nick Martin:206-464-3896