A teacher was taken into custody after an unsettling video of a beating surfaced online.
44-year-old Randi Nicole Staples, a 2nd-grade teacher at Cottage Hill Christian Academy in Mobile, Alabama, was arrested after a troubling video—reportedly showing 22 strikes over 14 seconds—was posted on Facebook.
The outlet reports that the video, filmed inside a home, shows Staples hitting her 12-year-old child with what appears to be a belt or strap before picking him up by his hair and berating him with profanity.
The Mobile County Sheriff’s Office confirmed to WPMI that Staples is the child’s mother.
another sibling living in the home recorded the video and sent it to an older sibling, who then posted it to social media. WPMI reports that the video was online only briefly before being removed.
A Facebook post from Cottage Hill Christian Academy shows that Staples was honored as Teacher of the Year in May.
“It’s almost like a dual personality. Because by all accounts, I’m told she is a good teacher and well respected. And yet what happens in the home is clearly opposite of that,” Mobile County Sheriff Paul Burch told WPMI.
The school added that it will cooperate with the Department of Human Resources, the Mobile County Sheriff’s Office, and the Mobile County District Attorney’s Office as the investigation continues.
Staples was arrested and booked into the Mobile Metro Jail. She is charged with the following, according to the reports
When speaking with the outlet, Sheriff Burch described Staples’ actions in the video as “repulsive.”
