A Florida Christian school principal was arrested last week for putting student on the ground in a chokehold and using a charging cable to hit the child.
Dontay Akeem Prophet, the 33-year-old principal of Destiny Leadership Academy in Ocala, told police he was trying “to prevent harm to the child” by keeping the student in a room for nearly 45 minutes on Friday, slapping the child in the face, and twisting the child’s ankle.
“However, the evidence clearly contradicted this assertion,” the Marion County Sheriff’s Office said, citing surveillance footage from the classroom where the assault took place.
According to WESH, the video from the classroom showed Prophet sitting on top of the student, putting him in a chokehold, and hit him in the head with the charging cable.
“Dontay Prophet started touching the child and pushing on him, and it turned into where he started to physically abuse the child,” sheriff’s office spokesperson Valerie Strong said.
The school held a meeting Monday to speak with parents about the incident and said it had fired Prophet.
“Our commitment to ensuring the safety and well-being of our students remain unwavering,” the school said in a statement. “We will continue to uphold our standards of excellence and nurture an environment where every child can flourish academically, socially, and spiritually.”
According to jail and court records, Prophet — also known as Dontay Akeem Lopez — has a lengthy history of traffic offenses and was arrested in 2019 on a charge of molesting a child under 18, although prosecutors later declined to prosecute that charge. He was charged at the same time with attempting to interfere with custody, pleaded no contest, and was sentenced to 90 days in jail with 25 days credit.
Prophet was jailed on the current charges without bond on charges of aggravated child abuse and false imprisonment of a child under 13.
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[Featured image: Marion County Sheriff’s Office via WESH. Inset: Dontay Akeem Prophet/Marion County Sheriff’s Office]
