Patricia Mulholland: Teacher yells at student, “this is what the Nazis do to Jews”
A member of the Minneapolis based National Socialist Movement waves a Nazi flag in Madison, Wisconsin during a rally at in August, 2006.
South Carolina middle school teacher Patricia Mulholland has been accused of dragging a student under a desk during class and telling the boy "this is what the Nazis do to Jews."
Mulholland grabbed the 12-year-old student on Wednesday by his collar and said, "come here, Jew," according to the Associated Press. She then dragged the boy under a desk and made the comment about Nazis. The student said he had gotten up to sharpen a pencil.
A social studies teacher at Bluffton Middle School, Mulholland was arrested at 5:45 a.m. today, reported the Island Packet. She was charged with third-degree assault and battery, and public disorderly conduct.
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Mulholland — who has 23 years of teaching experience and has been with the middle school since it opened two years ago — claimed she was teaching the class about the Holocaust and was roleplaying, according to the Savannah Morning News. The police were also given a video by students of Mulholland before the incident. In it, she attempts to sit on a desk, but falls.
"The students started recording her on their phones because she was acting so strange," Sgt. Joe Babkiewicz, spokesman for the police department, said to the Morning News.
According to the AP, police would not identify the student and refused to say whether he was Jewish.
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