The parent of a young child in Ball, Louisiana, has filed a lawsuit against the Rapides Parish School Board after security footage from Ball Elementary School captured a former teacher throwing the boy to the ground and then carrying him by the collar of his clothing into a hallway — all because he was sitting on top of his desk.

According to KALB and Gray News, the footage from September 2023 shows the former teacher, Stephanie Robertson, on her phone when she notices a boy sitting on his desk after the school day ended. She scolds him and throws him to the floor. The boy climbs back onto the desk. Robertson then responds more aggressively, causing the boy to flee — before she catches him and physically carries him out of the classroom by his collar.

The family's attorney, identified in reports as Davenport, was unsparing in his assessment of both the teacher's conduct and the response from local law enforcement. "What I saw was a very young child, who looked to be about maybe five, possibly six, doing something I've done myself — sitting on top of a desk," he said. "Then this teacher comes in, just jerks the boy off the desk. No instruction, no guidance."

Davenport said Robertson was charged with simple battery and that the matter was handled through the town of Ball mayor's court — a process he called wholly inadequate. "She should have been arrested, brought to jail, photographed, fingerprinted, and booked like all others before her who have been arrested for this kind of crime," he said. "An arrest is appropriate. Not a simple summons, which is what we call an arrest on paper."

Robertson has since left the school. The Rapides Parish School Board has not publicly commented on the lawsuit. Robertson has not issued a public statement.

The lawsuit is not an isolated incident in a national landscape where Black and brown children are disproportionately subject to physical restraint and discipline in public schools. According to federal data, Black students are significantly more likely to be referred to law enforcement or subjected to physical intervention than their white peers — a disparity that advocates argue begins in early childhood, in moments just like the one captured on Ball Elementary's security camera.