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Teacher faces felony charge in
dragging of boy, 7
May 17, 2007
By Zach Church
Staff writer Daily News of Newburyport
Click here
for video (Fox News)
LAWRENCE - Substitute teacher
Douglas Tracia said yesterday he will be "fully vindicated" of
felony charges that he grabbed a first-grader by the shirt collar
and hit his head into a school corridor door.
The incident was caught on a
surveillance camera at South Lawrence East school.
Police believe a close look at the
videotape shows that Tracia, of 5 Larkspur Circle in Georgetown,
lifted the 7-year-old by his shirt collar and slammed the boy's head
into a door as he carried him down the hallway Tuesday morning.
The boy sustained scratches and
lacerations on both sides of his neck, police said.
Tracia will now face a felony
charge of assault and battery with a dangerous weapon, as well as a
charge of endangering the welfare of a child.
"My comment is that this is still
America," Tracia said yesterday as officers walked him into the
police station in handcuffs. "The justice system will work."
Police arrested Tracia, 48,
yesterday afternoon at D.F. Tracia and Associates, a financial
adviser group on Turnpike Street in North Andover.
Tuesday, police had planned to
charge Tracia with assault and battery, a misdemeanor.
But police Capt. Denis Pierce
yesterday morning enhanced and zoomed in on the surveillance video.
"Once you slow the tape up, you
can see the child is driven into the door," police Chief John Romero
said. "He's off the ground, and he's being swung by this
individual."
The boy had run out of class
after refusing to apologize to a girl he threw a book at. The girl
had thrown the book at him first, police said. The tape shows
Tracia chasing the boy and then carrying him back down the hallway.
After consulting with the Essex
County District Attorney's Office, police chose to go with the
felony charge.
Tracia's lawyer, Paul Murphy, said
yesterday that Tracia is "distraught over these allegations, and the
character assassination that has accompanied him."
Murphy called Tracia a
"well-respected and admired educator" with a 12-year career. Tracia
has never been the subject of a mistreatment complaint, Murphy said.
"The tape reveals an extremely
agitated child acting in a potentially dangerous way and Mr. Tracia
doing nothing more than restoring safety and order," Murphy said.
"His actions were completely consistent with his solemn obligation
to the safety and well-being of the youngsters in the classroom."
Tracia has been fired from his job
at South Lawrence East School on Crawford Street, where he was a
substitute teacher employed on a day-to-day basis. He was hired in
January.
"As far as I'm concerned, for us,
he's not invited back to Lawrence Public Schools," Superintendent
Wilfredo Laboy said yesterday. "This relationship is over."
Francis McLaughlin, president of
the Lawrence Teachers Union, said he was "shocked" when he saw the
surveillance video and said Tracia's "abhorrent" actions "reflect
poorly on the hardworking and dedicated professional educators of
the Lawrence school system and the teaching profession itself."
Tracia is not a member of the
Lawrence Teachers Union.
Lina Tejada, the mother of the boy
in the video, has said that Tracia used excessive force and should
have just grabbed her son by the arm.
Tracia spent six years running a
law firm specializing in children, family and criminal defense
cases, according to the D.F. Tracia and Associates Web site. He
later shifted his focus to insurance protection and financial
planning. He has also worked in education for 12 years.
Tracia was scheduled to be
arraigned today in Lawrence District Court.
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