A student was disrespectful – so the teacher said he might ‘put a bullet’ in his head

A teacher in Rockdale County, Ga. has been placed under administrative leave after a parent shared a video of him threatening to “put a bullet” in the head of her 11th-grade son.

The video, which was posted on Facebook by April Carr, allegedly shows Paul Hagan, listed as the chair of the science department and an electronics instructor at Rockdale Career Academy, berating and eventually appearing to threaten a student for disrupting the class.

“If you screw with me, you’re going to be in big ass trouble,” he tells the student, who is off camera. “Don't smile at me, man. That's how people like you get shot,” he continues, as gasps erupt from the class. “I got a bet by the time you're 21 somebody's gonna to put a bullet right through your head. Okay? And it might be me the one who does it.”

Now Carr is asking the school to remove Hagan as an instructor. “I will not stop until he is removed from teaching and held accountable,” she wrote when she posted the video. “You see these stories on the news never believing it will happen to your child.”

The video has since been viewed more than 25,000 times and has been shared nearly 1,000 times.

Carr told WSB she had filed a report and is demanding consequences. “I think it's a terroristic threat on my son's life that I definitely don't take lightly,” she told the station.

She told the station her son and his friends were laughing and smiling together while the teacher wrote something on the board, which set the teacher off.

“It sets an overall tone that is totally unacceptable,” Carr told FOX 5. She admitted that her son was being disrespectful, but said that was no excuse for what the teacher said.

“At the end of the day, he is a child and that teacher is an adult. If you are frustrated, pull him out the class or wait until another class period,” she told the station. “Let yourself calm down then pull him to the side and talk to him. You don't threaten his life.”

Rockdale County Public School’s director for strategy and innovation Cindy Ball told the Rockdale Newton Citizen the instructor had been placed on administrative leave.

“We were made aware of the video Thursday afternoon and immediately launched an investigation into this personnel matter, which is ongoing at this time,” Ball told the paper.

Since going public with the video, Carr wrote that she’d received both support from people who thought the teacher’s response was overboard and from others who said the student shouldn’t have been acting out in the first place.

“I am thankful to everyone that is genuinely supporting me getting justice for my son,” Carr wrote on Facebook. “I am also completely shocked at the amount of people looking to place blame on the student and not the teacher. While I am aware of the amount of turmoil teachers go thru, the disrespect you endure, this is not the case.”

This story was originally published November 7, 2017 at 1:14 PM with the headline "A student was disrespectful – so the teacher said he might ‘put a bullet’ in his head."