An officer from the Louisville Metro Police Department in Kentucky has been arrested on various charges, including assault and wanton endangerment, in two separate incidents at a school, WHAS 11 reports.
The department suspended Jonathan Hardin, 31, without pay after his arrest.
Both incidents took place while Hardin was working as a school resource officer, authorities said. He is alleged to have hit one teenager in the face with his closed fist in January after seeing the boy cut in line at Olmstead Academy North’s cafeteria, the news site reports. Hardin allegedly then cited the teen for menacing and resisting arrest.
Less than a week later, Hardin is alleged to have put a teen in a choke hold until the boy lost consciousness. According to WHAS, it is unclear whether the teen in the choke hold is the same as the boy in the earlier incident. In the second incident, Hardin is also accused of handcuffing the unconscious teen instead of getting help for the boy, Raw Story reports.
According to the report, doctors confirmed that the teen put in a choke hold suffered a brain injury because of restricted blood flow. Hardin, they told Raw Story, could have killed the boy.
Raw Story reports that it isn’t the first time Hardin has been accused of rough-handling teens.
The former officer was sued in 2014 by another teen who said he was physically abused by the police officer while working during the summer at Gentleman’s Academy. The 14-year-old accused Hardin of hauling him out of bed at 3 a.m. by the neck and forcing him to do pushups for an hour without any water.
In the current case, Hardin is being held on a $25,000 bond.