Inset: William Sturgill (Montgomery County Sheriff’s Office/Clarksville Now). Background: The entrance to the Oak Plains Academy behavioral school in Tennessee where former worker William Sturgill allegedly “yeeted” a 10-year-old boy off a couch (Google Maps).
A Tennessee man working at a behavioral school for children got into a spat with a 10-year-old and instead of “de-escalating” chose to tussle with the boy, with his mom saying he slung the youth across a dayroom by his ankle, according to cops.
“Yeeted me off the couch so fast like Superman,” the child allegedly told his mother, Katelyn Swainson, who spoke to the local TV station Clarksville Now this week.
William Sturgill, 43, is charged with one count of child abuse or endangerment for the May incident at Oak Plains Academy after being arrested in August. A trial was set Monday for Dec. 15, according to online court records.
Swainson says she got a call on May 28 from her son about what happened, with the boy accusing Sturgill of getting mad at him over a blanket dispute, Clarksville Now reports.
“Mr. Sturgill, instead of walking up to my child and deescalating him like he’s trained to do, walked up to him and was screaming and pointing in his face,” Swainson said. “My son ran from him, like fight or flight.”
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The boy has been attending Oak Plains to help with behavioral issues that his mother says stem from autism, ADHD and disruptive mood dysregulation disorder (DMDD). He allegedly ran into a dayroom while Sturgill chased after him and threw him onto a couch, according to Clarksville Now, which cites Sturgill’s arrest warrant.
Swainson says Sturgill, who was allegedly caught on video, was shoving her son repeatedly onto the couch as he attempted to get up. The child kicked Sturgill “straight in between his legs” during the physical dispute and “that’s when Mr. Sturgill reacted by grabbing him by his ankles,” according to Swainson.
“And I mean he (Sturgill) pulled him off the couch so hard and so fast that his head smacked on the floor first,” Swainson said. Her son sustained bruising to his left wrist and shoulder, according to police.
“He was making progress there,” Swainson told Clarksville Now, in reference to Oak Plains, which describes itself online as a “residential treatment facility that provides services to boys and girls ages 7-17, struggling with emotional, behavioral and neurodevelopmental challenges,” per its website.
“We were seeing that he was going down the right path, but then this happened and kind of set us all back,” Swainson said.
Oak Plains has confirmed to Clarksville Now that Sturgill is no longer employed at the facility after management reviewed the video of the alleged incident. The center did not respond to Law&Crime’s request for comment on Wednesday.
