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Video: Maywood Academy Teacher Arrested After Punching Student In Class

MAYWOOD (CBSLA) — A teacher at Maywood Academy High School was arrested Friday after a violent altercation with a student inside a classroom.

In the video, the teacher, identified as 64-year-old Marston Riley, can be seen decking the student after a confrontation. The two then go at it in a horribly disturbing fist fight, reports CBS2's Tom Wait, all of this unfolding in a band class full of stunned students, some who recorded the incident with their cell phones.

The beating is nonstop, with the teacher wailing on the student, even using an object, perhaps his phone, to pummel the boy to the ground. Students and an adult try to pull the student away, but the teacher is relentless — the student struggled to escape.

"I was scared for the kid, and partly for the teacher too," said one student who was in the classroom at the time. He told CBS2 the fight started after the teacher told the student he was not wearing the proper school uniform. The student responded with a tirade of racist profanities, which can be heard in the video before the fight started.

"It was just back and forth, back and forth, and then the teacher just decided to throw a punch and that's when everything happened," the student said.

Riley's wife told CBS2's Stacey Butler she had not spoken with her husband. "I don't know anything. I don't even know what happened," she said.

The fallout from the video is just beginning. Parents are furious.

"I'm shocked. Why did it have to escalate to this point?" one woman said.

"I think something needs to be done. That's way out of hand," said another parent.

The district did not release a statement about the incident, telling CBS2 it was a personnel matter.

"I send my kids [to] school to learn, not to hit," another parent said.

The student was taken to the hospital. He is believed to be OK.

Marston remained in custody Friday night on $50,000 bail at the LA County Jail.

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