A Tennessee school resource officer (SRO), Tyler McRae, has stepped down after a viral video of a nearly hour-long struggle with East Ridge High School student Tauris Sledge, 18, surfaced, leaving viewers to form many opinions on the incident.
McRae was called into the school gymnasium to intervene in an argument between a gym teacher and Sledge on Sept. 20. McRae’s bodycam recorded the entire altercation from the moment he confronted the gym teacher and Sledge on the matter. Sledge told his gym teacher that he wasn’t feeling well enough to play kickball but was seen playing basketball moments later, prompting the teacher to confront Sledge for not following instructions. When confronted, Sledge accused the coach of racism and for not speaking to him with respect.
“So I come to him and said to hold up, ‘you said you was sick,’ and he said, ‘Don’t approach me like that.’ I said, ‘I’m a teacher; I can talk to you how I want to,’” the coach explained.
During the conversation heard in the video, the gym teacher tells McRae he tried to “give him [Sledge] a one-on-one.” Still, the student continued to be disrespectful and allegedly instigated a heated argument between the two.
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