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Updated 02/12/2010 11:55 PM

Dismissed Brooklyn School Aide Allegedly Encouraged Student Fight

By: Tetiana Anderson

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A Brooklyn school aide was suspended after allegedly recruiting a school bully to beat up a fourth-grader in a city elementary school, and the alleged victim's family members announced Friday that they will sue the city.

According to a Department of Education report, Tyreik Bowers, seen above, a student at P.S. 167 in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, was involved with an argument with another student earlier this month.

Bowers's mother, Felicia Waldron, said her son was then beaten by a bully, and now she will sue the DOE for $2 million in damages.

Waldron alleged that other children became involved with the fight and that school faculty did not intervene.

Dismissed Brooklyn School Aide Allegedly Encouraged Student Fight
"I was told by the school staff and another school aide that the teacher came down, she turned her back. This is the homeroom teacher," said Waldron. "And a couple other school aides that were in the auditorium just ignored it."

Waldron then said a school aide kept the fight going.

"The school aide came and told the little girl told her to say 'his mother' again. When the little girl said it, my son hit her," said Waldron. "A school aide told another kid to go to the other side of the auditorium and get a kid that's known as a bully in the school. When the kid came over, he already knew what to do. He started swinging on my son, saying, 'You're hitting on girls,' and started swinging and punching my son."

Dismissed Brooklyn School Aide Allegedly Encouraged Student Fight
An incident report by the DOE says two other fourth-grade girls were injured in the incident. The mother of one of the girls, Tamara Johnson, told NY1 that Bowers was the aggressive one.

"I was completely dumbfounded by the article, because he punched my daughter in the face," said Johnson. "My daughter was in the nursing room with her face all swollen and bruised up, and for her to say he was assaulted was just crazy to me. He didn't even get touched."

Waldron claims that her son received headaches and a sore back from the fight.

A teacher was also suspended for allegedly recording the entire fight on her cell phone, which the teacher denies doing.

Waldron said she kept Bowers home since the incident, as she was worried about retaliation from students and school officials, and was working on getting her son transferred to another school.