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Family Claims Teacher Attacked Long Island Boy For Walking Wrong Way In Hall

BRENTWOOD, N.Y. (CBSNewYork) -- A Long Island family alleges that a teacher roughed up a 13-year-old boy and that school officials have refused to show them surveillance video of the incident.

Attorney Ken Mollins said Christian Cortez, who suffers from attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, was violently attacked by a teacher at the Brentwood Freshman Center for walking in the wrong direction in the hallway.

Family: Long Island Boy Was Attacked By Teacher For Walking Wrong Way In Hall

"Grabbed him by the collar, threw him up against the wall into the lockers and then put him into a full nelson, lifted him off the floor, carried him to a doorway, where he took him outside and where the young man was thrown to the floor, handcuffed and left there," Mollins told WCBS 880 Long Island Bureau Chief Mike Xirinachs.

Mollins said it's not an isolated incident.

"At this school, walking around the halls is like the Wild West," he said. "Nobody's being punished for what's being done."

The incident was captured on surveillance video, but, Mollins said, the principal won't release it.

"Allowing teachers to throw kids around, the principal's just covering this whole story up," said the boy's father, Hector Cortez.

"He's afraid," Hector Cortez said of his son. "He doesn't want to go back to school. He has to deal with kids, and now worry about teachers, too?"

School officials have not responded to the allegations.

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