Settlements have reportedly been reached in two federal civil rights lawsuits accusing a former second grade teacher in Minnesota of physically assaulting and segregating Black students.

The Star Tribune reported that ex-Harambee Elementary School teacher Geraldine Cook, who is white, was first accused in a September 2020 lawsuit of choking a 7-year-old Black boy with learning disabilities and forcing him to hold his hands behind his back as though he were being arrested.

Google Maps Street View Image of Harambee Elementary School in Minnesota

The lawsuits additionally claim that Cook, now 58, assaulted at least two other Black students and segregated them from white classmates while treating them more harshly. The incidents were said to have happened in 2019. Cook resigned in December of the same year, per the Tribune.

Court records reviewed by the Tribune reportedly do not disclose the terms of the settlement reached for one of the lawsuits in August, or the terms of the settlement reached earlier in January for the other lawsuit. 

According to the outlet, the suits claim that Delon Smith, principal of Harambee Elementary, knew about the choking incident but did nothing to address it and tried to prevent the mother of the boy from learning about it.

The accusations were filed in U.S. District Court in St. Paul, Minnesota by Kristen Lindsey, a mother and volunteer at the school who reportedly first grew concerned after observing “overwhelmed and erratic” behavior from Cook when interacting with her Black students, per the Tribune.

Classroom Stock Image

Lindsey claims in the lawsuit that Cook, while gesturing toward about six Black children who she had forced to sit in a separate group from their white peers, told her that she was struggling with “that particular group of students.”

Per the Tribune, Lindsey’s son later said that Cook had grabbed his throat after he gargled water in class and forced him to march to the principal’s office “while forcing him to hold his hands behind his back like a criminal defendant,” as written in the suit.

Smith asked the boy not to relay the incident to his mother, according to the suit. The boy was reportedly traumatized and eventually transferred to a different school district, the Tribune reported.

Cook was also accused of pulling a Black girl’s arm and ripping her shirt, assaulting another Black boy, pushing and grabbing Black students, as well as  “smooshing” their faces.

In December 2019, the Ramsey County Attorney’s Office declined to file felony charges against Cook, citing a lack of “evidence that a crime occurred,” according to Joe Steiner, a sergeant with the Maplewood Police Department.

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