HS assistant principal caught on video slamming students to ground in separate incidents, police say. But school district is backing him up.

A South Carolina high school assistant principal was caught on video slamming students to the ground in separate incidents and is charged with assault in connection with one of them.

What are the details?

Cayce Police released a video they say shows Leon Brunson — an assistant principal at Brookland-Cayce High School — assaulting a student, the State reported.

The May 25 clip appears to have been recorded from the top of the bleachers at the school's football stadium and shows from a long distance away Brunson shoving a student to the ground, police told the paper.

Brunson intervened in a fight between two students and took down one of the participants, West Metro News reported.

“This video will show that Brunson lunges toward the student and slams him to the ground long after the fight was over and the two students were separated,” Cayce police indicate in a statement released with the videos, the State reported. “The students had left the building and were walking away from each other at the time Brunson assaulted the student.”

Brunson was charged with third-degree assault and unlawful conduct toward a child in connection with last week's incident, the State reported.

The student said contact with Brunson resulted in an injury, West Metro News added.

Police said Brunson declined to make a statement to them, the State reported.

What did the school district have to say?

The Lexington Two School District is disputing the accusations against Brunson, West Metro News reported.

After Brunson was arrested and briefly suspended, he was back at school in his role as assistant principal Tuesday, West Metro News said, adding that school district attorney Jake Moore said Brunson used reasonable restraint and was not wrong to break up the fight between the two students.

Another video, another takedown

Police also released a video they say shows Brunson grabbing a student by the waist and slamming him to the floor in a high school hallway after a March 2020 fight, the paper said, adding there's no indication Brunson faced charges in connection to that incident.

In its statement, police criticized how school administrators handled the 2020 incident, the State reported.

“Body slamming a child is not ... ‘action that is reasonable to stop a fight,’ as the school administration has stated they determined in their investigation," the police statement reads, according to the paper. "Nor did it occur during the fight."