Houston, TEXAS

Grand jury declines to indict.

We don't usually cover those teacher-student fight cases when the teacher is arrested but this one has some interesting twists.

June 6, 2008 - Andre Credit, 32, an associate principal at Bush High School, was arrested Tuesday and charged with aggravated assault. A student says Credit put him in a choke hold and slammed him to the ground following a food fight where the student threw a plastic bottle. The student reportedly suffered bruises and paramedics were called to treat the student at the school.

Today, ABC13 news learned that Credit was convicted of misdemeanor theft twice. The convictions happened in 1995, then in 1996. At the time he was 20 and 21 years old. He's now 32. Each time he was given a year of probation. For the '96 conviction he was sentenced to 180 days in jail. He worked at Houston Independent School District before Fort Bend hired him a year despite those convictions.

The school district reaction: "It is not a practice of the district to hire employees with felony convictions, and the district evaluates misdemeanor convictions on a case by case basis prior to employment."

The case has turned into a drama. The student talked to Eyewitness News and Credit had a press conference in front of the school surrounded by his wife and infant son and "a slew of professional colleagues, (a slew looks to be 6) some of whom are principals at area high schools" (described by the Houston Chronicle merely as "friends." ) The teachers union had a press conference to demand further investigation. Ominously, "there are questions about the handling of the investigation into the Bush disturbance."

They claim police set students down at a table to write out their statements without monitoring them and the students consulted each other. Fort Bend police say that was the administration investigation, not theirs. They talked to students separately.

A student took a cell phone picture of the takedown of the student that really makes you cringe for the facedown student. (Seen briefly in this video report.) Teachers at the school seem to be feeding the media info about the student. That he has an extensive disciplinary record and "He has had issues with being disruptive and disrespecting authority in the past,” one person on campus said, which doesn't sound like a high schooler talking.
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Unrelated to the case, a federal judge ruled Friday the valedictorian at Bush High School will not be allowed to participate in his graduation ceremony. Khurrum Khan is facing charges of felony property theft for his alleged role in what district officials described as a scheme involving missing computers at that school and computer hacking at another school. He sued when the school district said he could not attend the graduation ceremony in light of his conduct. The judge's ruling.

June 8 - TT - What has become increasingly interesting is the automatic assumption that police were incompetent and acted in bad faith in arresting the administrator. At least, those are the public postings, the emotion fed, it looks like, by the teachers union.

In Texas, the battlelines are drawn between the teachers union and anyone else who wants a say in education issues. Including elected representatives. This appears to be a case of overreaction by an administrator that, luckily, only bruised the student but might have caused severe injury. The police made a call on scene. Until evidence is presented at a preliminary, it is hard to form any opinion, but the hype seems to be way out of proportion. SERIOUSLY way out of proportion. It's the kind of hissy fit hysteria that activists like to throw. What we would like to know is if Credit is a union representative at the school or very active in the union. Or if Credit's priors were a factor.

NO INDICTMENT August 18 - A Fort Bend County grand jury declined to indict Credit.