The 15-year-old student who went viral back in January for putting hands on her teacher has been sentenced to one year behind bars at a youth detention center. Earlier this year, video footage of the teenager, whose identity has not been publicly disclosed, circulated all over social media after she brutally attacked British literature teacher Tiwana Turner at Heritage High School in Conyers, Georgia.
According to FOX 5 Atlanta, the student pleaded guilty to felony assault, and once she completes her one-year sentence, she will spend five years on a supervised release program, the Rockdale County assistant district attorney said. Three months after the incident and Turner says she is still not able to walk on her two feet, saying she’s still using crutches and hasn’t been able to return to work ever since. In the video posted online, the student can be seen yelling in Turner’s face and slapping her cell phone out of her hand before the teacher tried to call for help as she walked out of the classroom.
When Turner stopped the teen from closing the door on her, a scuffle breaks out and the girl pulls grabs her teacher by her hair and pulls her to the ground. She continues to take several swings at Turner as the tussle carried on while students pulled out their phones to record. “She just went off and pulled me down to the floor,” Turner told FOX5 Atlanta. “I was in the hospital six days and the numbness was there all six days. I can’t go to work, I can’t see my students. I can’t do anything that I used to do. I can’t drive.
“The cell phones, they’re able to bring them to school. It’s becoming a huge issue. It’s like their livelihood,” she said. “You take it away, some of them go berserk.”
“I would say that if I had to start teaching with this generation of students, I wouldn’t have been able to.”
Turner, who has been teaching for close to three decades, is gutted that she can’t return to her job yet because she’s still recovering from the attack, but she says she hopes the girl who assaulted her gets the help that she needs. “Hopefully she will grow from this, she will get the help she needs.”
She also spoke on the positive messages she has received from strangers who have lifted her mood amid this difficult time, saying, “People who don’t know me have reached out to me. Have helped me. Are praying for me. Supporting. That kind of treatment that holds you up when you fall […] I don’t take any of it for granted.”