For many young people, teachers play the role of mentors, counselors, and friends, but for one isolated New Jersey student, his teacher became a guardian.
Outnumbered 5 to 1, a student at William Shemin Midtown Community School in Bayonne, NJ, was set upon by his peers, only for his teacher to intervene, shielding his prone body with her own.
Recorded by nearby security cameras, the scene saw 56-year-old Cathy Hurley try and prevent violence from starting between a group of teens while she was walking to her parked car.
Hurley’s daughter, speaking with ABC 7 News, said her mother must have known that something was wrong, and because she was “raised to stick up for the underdog,” tried to talk the teens out of fighting. They ignored her.
Throwing one boy to the ground, repeatedly punching and kicking him, Hurley tried to push them away before eventually lowering herself over the defenseless student, dissuading the assailants from throwing further blows.
ABC 7 reports that all five teens were charged with assault, endangering an injured victim, and rioting, while the young boy was taken unconscious to the hospital.
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Bayonne School District Superintendent John Niesz in a statement said in part, “I can tell you this, that teacher embodies what each and everyone who works and lives in Bayonne is all about.”
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“She was raised that way,” said Hurley’s daughter Frankie Sielski. “I was raised that way to stick up for the underdog and I know that her responding was an instinct.”
Sielski added that her mom is living proof that society is full of good, selfless people.
WATCH the story below from ABC 7…
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