A Bronx teacher has been arrested and accused of repeatedly punching and sitting on top of a 12-year-old student. Evelyn Tirado, 53, has been accused of assaulting Brigitte Aznaran last Thursday at Dr. Richard Izquierdo Health and Science Charter School in Morrisania. “She grabbed me by my arms, threw me to the floor and starting hitting my arm,” the sixth grader told the Daily News. “Then she sat on top of me like I was a chair. I was crying. I don’t ever want to see her again.”
According to the girl, Tirado became enraged when she tried to leave school early to make a doctor’s appointment. When she went to pick up a notebook, Tirado allegedly physically engaged with her. "And then she broke my book—I have it in my room. And then she snatched the book from my hand. We both went back and forth with each other. And then she threw me to the floor and started hitting me in my arm," Aranza told NY1.
Tirado turned herself into police on Sunday, and was given a desk appearance ticket and charged with assault of a minor. “Dr. Richard Izquierdo Health and Science Charter School reported an incident of corporal punishment to us and placed the teacher on administrative duty away from the school,” confirmed Education Department spokesman Frank Thomas.
In a separate incident in the Bronx, a substitute teacher at Bronx Career and College Prep High School in Morrisania has been charged with forcible touching and endangering the welfare of a child. Chukwuma Duru, 27, has already been fired for the incident, but the Department of Education stressed to NY1 that the incident was not sexual in nature.
There have been three other teachers arrested in recent weeks for various sex abuse charges: Wilbert Cortez was arrested last week and charged with allegedly fondling two young male students at PS 174 in Rego Park. PS 23 teacher's assistant Taleek Brooks is facing child porn charges for allegedly filming students, and PS 87 teacher's assistant Gregory Atkins has been accused of molesting a young boy in school.
