Teacher Accused Of Broom Beatings

(CBS)  A 57-year-old New York City substitute teacher was arrested Thursday after he lost control of his first-grade class and attacked 19 of his pupils with a broom handle, police said.

"He smacked my daughter," mother Tashana Sapp said. "He smacked her so hard that he knocked her earring out of her ear."

The teacher, Danilo Nunez, of the Bronx, faces assault charges in connection with the incident in the Washington Heights section of Manhattan. It allegedly began when two students threw crayons at each other.

Nunez lashed out after losing control of the class, police spokesman Sgt. Gregory Harold said.

Sapp told WCBS-TV's John Slattery that the teacher grabbed her daughter's ear.

"He beat another child with the back of a broom stick," she said. "He broke it and then hit him.

"These are babies," she added. "What gives him the right to hit our kids?"

The children, mostly 5 or 6 years old, were taken to a local hospital, where they were treated and released.

A woman at Nunez' home who identified herself as his wife but declined to provide her first name said he had been substitute teaching for two years and she was shocked at the assault accusations.

A Board of Education spokeswoman did not return phone calls seeking comment.

WCBS-AM's Sean Adams reports parents were to meet with the school's principal later Friday.