Not guilty: Ex-teacher acquitted of slapping special needs student

GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (WOOD) — A Kent County jury found a former teacher not guilty of slapping a special needs student last October at Lincoln School in Grand Rapids.

“We were absolutely thrilled to get the not guilty verdict today,” defense attorney Tessa Muir of SBBL Law said. “The jury took less than 20 minutes to deliberate after hearing from 16 witnesses, and it was clear. The writing was on the wall; this did not happen. She did not slap this child.”

A jury on Friday morning acquitted Katie Lindell of misdemeanor child abuse.

Lindell was a teacher at Lincoln School until a staff member, who was in Lindell’s classroom that day, claimed he witnessed her hit a student.

The student is non-verbal and has autism.

Teacher slapped non-verbal student with autism in face, court record says

Lincoln School on Crahen Avenue NE in Grand Rapids teaches children with complex special needs.

Muir, Lindell’s attorney, said Kent Intermediate School District, which operates Lincoln, placed Lindell on leave and then told her to resign or be fired.

Lindell resigned, but Muir said her client is looking forward to returning to her career now that the false accusations are behind her.

Muir said the single witness against her client was not credible, and there was no evidence that Lindell was anything other than a devoted teacher who loved caring for students with special needs.

“It came out at trial that the sole, so-called eyewitness had really significant mental health struggles, a history of court-ordered psychiatric hospitalization, and just really severe issues including schizophrenia and delusional thinking and responding to external stimuli,” she said.

Muir said the student’s mom contacted Lincoln at 6:47 p.m. on the day in question to report finding a bruise on her son’s cheek. That’s three hours after the school day ended.

“No one in the classroom, no one getting the student on the bus and no one on the bus observed any mark on the child’s face,” Muir explained. “So there’s just a lot of unaccounted-for time, and there could be any number of accidental causes. Kids of any type bump into things and get bruises, but this particular child, given his special needs, did have a documented history that came out at trial of getting bruises on his face and on his head and on his body. Honestly, how he got a mark was not solved at trial. All that was solved was that it didn’t come from Katie.”

Muir said Lindell’s conduct had never been called into question before, and investigators did nothing to investigate other potential sources of injury,

“Katie, just the moment I met her, I could tell how caring she was, and she’s been so calm and professional, just having faith that the truth will come out, and indeed it did… She absolutely did not witness anything that injured him, and she did not cause anything that injured him,” she said.

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