Teacher Accused of Putting 10-Year-Old in Closet for Laughing in Class

Wauwatosa police are investigating allegations that a teacher at made a 10-year-old student stand in a closet for more than half an hour to punish the boy for laughing in class.

The youth's father filed a complaint with police and the school district on Friday in which he said his son had been mistreated and slightly injured by the teacher in two separate incidents.

According to police:

In one incident, the boy said he had been made to stand in a small closet because he had been laughing. The boy told his father that another child disciplined for the same behavior had been sent to the cafeteria, yet he had been sent to the closet.

The father did not know about that incident until his son told him that he had been physically grabbed by the same teacher in a second incident on Thursday, and that he had suffered painful scratches on his lower back and a bump on the back of his head. The incident involving the closet happened about two weeks earlier, the youth told his father.

The father said his son said the teacher had grabbed at the lower part of the back of his shirt and had scratched him in the process, and also pulled him backward into a railing upon which he bumped his head.

The father told police he reported the incidents to the principal of Lincoln Elementary, and that school officials would conduct an internal investigation.

The case was forwarded to the Wauwatosa Police Detective Bureau for further investigation.

A spokesman for the school district said Monday evening that he had no comment on the incidents.