Tiwana Turner / Facebook
The student who assaulted Heritage High School English teacher Tiwana Turner has been sentenced to a year in juvenile detention and will spend five years in a supervised release program.
Last week, without specifying when and where, an assistant district attorney in Rockdale County said a judge sentenced the unidentified minor to one year in juvenile detention for pleading guilty to aggravated assault on a teacher, which is a felony, FOX 5 Atlanta
reported.Generally, the act of physically assaulting a teacher can be classified as assault and battery, a misdemeanor offense, but the use of a weapon or causing serious bodily injury to the teacher can be charged as a felony in some jurisdictions, where the perpetrator can face felony charges and more severe penalties.
The assault back in Januray 26, which left Turner partially immobile and unable to resume work at the Atlanta suburb school, happened because the teacher tried to confiscate the 15-year-old’s phone.
Turner uses crutches or a walker to get around.
“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,” Turner told FOX 5 Atlanta in an exclusive interview.
Turner was hospitalized for six days. The viral video of the attack garnered national attention, and she received donations to a GoFundMe that, as of this writing, has raised more than half of its $50,000 goal.
“People who don’t know me have reached out to me. Have helped me. Are praying for me. Supporting,” she said. “That kind of treatment that holds you up when you fall […] I don’t take any of it for granted.”
Turner has been a teacher for nearly 30 years, and she loves her job at Heritage High School and looks forward to seeing her students. However, when asked if she would have started her teaching career in this generation, she said the students would have made it impossible.
“I would say that if I had to start teaching with this generation of students, I wouldn’t have been able to,” she told the station.