Southington High Teacher Cleared in Duct-Tape Incident

A Southington High School language arts teacher has been cleared of any criminal wrong-doing in connection with a Sept. 18 incident in which he admitted duct-taping a student to a chair and desk in an effort to get the student to concentrate on his work, according to Southington Police.

In an eight-page report, prepared by Det. Lewis Palmieri, and released Tuesday afternoon by Southington Police, police said, “the criminal investigation was being closed. No violation of criminal law was found as a result of this investigation. This investigation is being closed no arrest is anticipated.”

Because police said they did not find any criminality and there hasn’t been an arrest, Patch is not identifying the teacher.

Police were called to the school after another teacher reported to the school administration that a teacher admitted to using duct-tape on a student. According to the police report, school administrators ordered the other teacher to file a referral regarding the incident to the state Department of Children and Families.

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According to the police report, the teacher admitted to wrapping a single piece of the tape around the desk and chair in which the student was seated during a Friday afternoon class on Sept. 18. The unidentified student admitted to being unable to focus on his work and that the tape incident occurred after the teacher told him to focus and concentrate on his work at least two times, according to the report.

The incident occurred shortly before class dismissal and when the dismissal bell rang, the teacher removed the tape, shook hands with the student and thanked for “having a sense of humor,” according to the police report.

The teacher told police the student’s inability to focus, impacted the rest of the class and that he decided to use humor and the duct tape as a way to diffuse the situation, according to the report. In the report, the teacher is quoted as saying the class and the student laughed when the duct tape was used.

The teacher, however, said, “This incident while very clearly a poor act of judgment was actually meant to be funny. I see no humor in it now,” according to the police report.

The teacher also told police, “I am ashamed of my actions, and I can only hope that I have the opportunity to meet (student’s name redacted) and his family, to apologize, to assure them that this will never happen again, and to assure them that (the student’s) safety and esteem a very important to me.”

According to the police report, Palmieri notified the teacher that the investigation was being closed.

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