Student at Rock Hill school body slammed peer after racial slur. He won’t go to jail
A student at a Rock Hill school who beat a classmate following a body slam after being called a racial slur will not go to jail.
York County Family Court Judge David Guyton ruled the student should serve probation until age 18 after the teen pleaded guilty to assault and battery after the April 2018 incident outside South Pointe High School. Another judge who accepted the plea in July 2018 ordered the defendant’s behavior be observed for months before a sentence was rendered.
Guyton said he “detests the N-word used in the incident” and does not tolerate that word used in his courtroom.
He told the defendant “sometimes it takes more of a man to walk away, and “you can’t take the law into your own hands.”
The defendant did not speak in court, but his lawyer Stacey Coleman said the defendant “overreacted” after hearing the racial slur.
Prosecutors, state juvenile justice officials and all parties agreed probation was proper in this case.
The Herald is not naming the defendant or the victim because of their ages and because the case is being handled in Family Court. The defendant was 16 years old at the time of the incident in April 2018 and has no prior record.
A $5 debt between the two students at the school led to the pair agreeing to fight, court testimony in 2018 showed. The victim called the suspect a racial slur before the April 18 incident, the defendant’s lawyer said in court in July.
The defendant picked up the victim and slammed him to the ground then punched him while he was on the ground. The incident was captured on video.
Prosecutors called the incident “violent” and said the victim sustained serious injuries.
The judge who accepted the guilty plea in 2018, York County Family Court Judge Tony Jones, said there is no place in society for racial slurs. But Jones also said the words while deplorable did not merit such a violent attack. Jones had concerns about the punch after the body slam while the smaller boy was already on the ground with such force that if the suspect were an adult, he could have faced serious felony charges and prison time.
