A Chattanooga man has been charged with child abuse after allegedly beating and throwing a young family member across an elementary school bathroom.
Police were called to Orchard Knob Elementary School on April 18 to take a report from staff members, Hamilton County court records show. They showed police security footage of Marvin Douglas, 50, taking a young boy into the school's first-grade bathroom (The cameras only showed a limited area of the bathroom's sink area).
Just outside the bathroom, a woman was pacing back and forth, court records state. At one point, she distracted another child from entering the bathroom.
The video shows the young boy being thrown across the bathroom toward the exit, court records show. Douglas is then seen hitting the boy several times and then dragging him by his leg out of the camera's view.
Meanwhile, the woman outside is seen "laughing hysterically as the assault is taking place," court records state.
Several moments go by in which the boy and Douglas are out of the camera's view before the boy runs out of the bathroom, doubled over, according to court records.
Douglas is then seen yanking the boy by the arm and exiting the hallway.
A teacher told police she saw Douglas and the boy in the hallway before the bathroom incident.
She introduced herself and let Douglas know that the boy had gotten in trouble earlier that day for punching a girl on the playground, court records state.
The teacher said Douglas told her, "I've taken care of that. I've punched [the boy] in the stomach harder than he ever could have punched that girl," court records state.
The teacher said the boy then said something that upset Douglas, so he slapped him "very forcefully" in the face, knocking him into the concrete wall.
He then punched the boy so hard he folded over, holding onto his stomach, court records state. The boy tried to walk away, but Douglas hit him again, knocking him back into the concrete wall.
Douglas snatched the boy up by the arm and exited the building.
The teacher noted the boy had a bruise and small cuts on his face and head. His clothes were soaked from water on the bathroom floor.
Douglas was arrested a week later and booked into the Hamilton County Jail on a $40,000 bond.
He has an extensive arrest history in Hamilton County dating back to 1994, online court records show. Most of his previous charges, the latest of which was in 2009, are drug-related.
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