Cobb County

Video shows paraprofessional grab special needs student by neck

COBB COUNTY, Ga. — A Cobb County school paraprofessional is out of a job after security camera video caught him grabbing a special-needs student by the throat in the Osborne High School gym.

Channel 2 Action News got a copy of the security camera video through an open-records request.

It shows Richard Laseter grabbing an unidentified special-needs student by the throat and yelling at him as they were pushing another student through the gym in a wheelchair. The incident happened on Aug. 24.

After viewing the video and talking with witnesses, the school district fired Laseter two weeks after the incident.

“As a parent with a special-needs child, I think that’s just terrible,” said Melina Escobar. She has a ninth grade student at Osborne, but is also parent to a special needs third grade student.

“It makes me very angry, because he has special needs,” Escobar said. “He doesn’t know how to act or how to express himself. So whatever the situation was, he shouldn’t have done that.”

Escobar said she learned about the incident when other parents shared it on social media. Other parents were glad the district moved quickly to fire Laseter.

“If he got fired for it, I wish no bad on people, but that was definitely called for to be fired,” said Osborne parent Lionel Wilson.

The special-needs child was not injured in the incident.  Calls to Laseter’s attorney went unreturned.