Brusly, La. teacher arrested after allegedly attacking a child

A West Baton Rouge Parish elementary school teacher is facing charges of battery and cruelty to juveniles, stemming from an incident in her classroom last month.

According to police records, the Brusly Police Department arrested Melissa Blank after she allegedly grabbed a student and pushed the student against a closet, demanding the child “pick up her things.”

Melissa Blank, 467 W. Main St., was booked on Feb. 21 into the West Baton Rouge Parish Jail on 15 counts of false imprisonment, and one count of cruelty to juveniles and simple battery.

MELISSA BLANK

According to an affidavit, Blank allegedly grabbed the child by the neck with one hand and squeezed her upper arm with the other while holding the student against the closet doors.

She is also accused of false imprisonment for allegedly blocking the door with chairs, preventing anyone from leaving the classroom.

WAFB News reported that the incident happened on February 7 while Blank worked at Brusly Elementary School.

Blank was reportedly asking her students to complete a math problem and one of the children wasn’t paying attention so Blank yelled at her, the warrant for Blank’s arrest states, apparently drawing from the witness’ account of the incident.

The child became upset and swatted the learning materials Blank was using for instruction that day, the report says. Blank then walked up to the student and swung the child around to face her before grabbing the child by the face/neck and pushing the student against the closet doors, the witness told police.

The witness said Blank yelled, “You aren’t going to touch my things, you aren’t going to act like this!”

When the child continued to disobey her request, the witness told police, Blank started pinching the child’s shoulder, bruising the child’s skin.

The arrest warrant states the witness to the incident tried to intervene to remove the student from the class but was told by Blank that “she needs to learn she can’t act like this and she’s not going to touch my things!”

The West Baton Rouge Parish School System superintendent confirmed that the teacher now works for Lukeville Elementary School.

However, he said he could not comment on the arrest.

This article originally published in the March 12, 2018 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.