Thfire.com Everyday news that matters A college professor really lost his cool, when he body-slammed a female teenage student. The entire event was indeed like a pro-wrestling match, except that the small girl was simply helpless.
The excuse the professor had? Well, “She started it!”.
A Fresno City College instructor and former city council member is on paid administrative leave after body-slamming a 5’1, 101-pound teenage student for telling him to “piss off, asshole.” Based on the half-dozen students and substitute instructor who support the student’s account of her attack, this guy should never teach or hold any position of power ever again.
19-year-old journalism major Kevynn Gomez told police that she cursed at at 69-year-old instructor Brian Calhoun before their March 22 fight because he marched into her Chicano-Latino Studies class and yelled at the substitute teacher and students for staying in the room a few minutes past the bell to finish up a mid-term. (He had a class the next period.) After Gomez turned in her test, she walked by an angry Calhoun and said, “piss off, asshole.” Not the nicest comment, admittedly, but still not one that warrants getting beat up by a member of the administration.
Yet that’s exactly what happened. According to multiple witnesses, Calhoun followed her as she walked out of the classroom, asking what her name was and saying “you can’t talk to me like that.” He then trapped her left arm and “used his other forearm to pin her neck against the wall while he was still holding her left arm.” Gomez said she punched the instructor in the face because he “she could not get him to let her go and was afraid he was going to hurt her.” In response, Calhoun — who is at least six feet tall, according to Gomez’s attorney — lifted the 5-foot, 101-pound Gomez up in the air and slammed her into the ground before students were able to pull her away.
Calhoun, who was cited for misdemeanor battery and ordered to appear in Fresno County Superior Court on June 19, says the fight was all Gomez’s fault. “This wouldn’t have happened if she hadn’t lashed out,” his attorney Roger Nuttall told The Fresno Bee on Monday.
But Gomez’s attorney, Catherine Campbell, said Nuttall’s assertion was bizarre, especially given that Calhoun is a instructor who towers over the teenage student he aggressively attacked. “His attack was flagrant and violent,” Campbell said. “He was out of control.”
We’re glad Gomez — who recently wrote essays for Feminspire called “Sailor Moon and the Virgin-Whore Complex” and “Why Should My Tattoos Stop Me From Getting Fired” (a woman after our own heart) — was able to defend herself, but she shouldn’t have had to in the first place. There’s no possible explanation that could justify Calhoun’s decision to attack a student — and if he feels that’s a justifiable response for being called an “asshole,” one wonders what other disciplinary methods he’s employed in the past.
