Teacher says Blackwell “was a troubled kid and serious threat”

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DAHLONEGA, Ga. – Teachers and students at Lumpkin County Middle School were afraid of 17-year-old Kaylor Blackwell. One math teacher refused to be in the same classroom with the volatile teen and another refused to be in the same class unless Pat Garner, a math teacher and former criminal investigator with the Lumpkin County Sheriff’s Office was in a co-taught class with her.

“He was a troubled kid and a serious threat,” Garner testified Tuesday in Lumpkin County Superior Court. “He’s explosive. He strikes fear in people. It’s just the way he is and he knows that and likes doing it.”

Garner is a defense witness in the trial of his brother, Tim Garner, who is charged with child cruelty and simple battery in connection with a 2017 incident at the Lumpkin County alternative school in which he is caught on a surveillance camera grabbing Blackwell by the throat and dragging him along a cafeteria table.

Tim Garner said he acted in self defense. “I was in fear of a head butt or something like that or carrying something,” he told WSB-TV.

Pat Garner spent nearly two hours on the witness stand relating how he had essentially been assigned to teaching and protecting students and teachers at the middle school from Blackwell for two years.

He said he first became aware of Blackwell in 2012 when the teen was a seventh grader and he  was called to a meeting in 2012 where one math teacher refused to be in the same class with Blackwell and another would be in the class but only if it was a co-taught class and Garner was in the class with her. “They wouldn’t do it without me being in the room,” he said.

He also testified there were “numerous occasions” when he had to step in between Blackwell and a teacher or another student. “It was kind of an ongoing thing. On a couple of occasions, it became quite severe,” he said.

One incident took place near the end of the teen’s seventh grade year when Garner said Blackwell threatened to stab a special education student in the eye with a pencil. In another incident, Garner said, “He, “blew up at a teacher and came toward her. I got in between them and he was calling her a Fing B word in a real threatening tone. I got him outside and they sent him home.”

Garner said, Blackwell’s mother signed paperwork agreeing to send him to alternative school the following year, but when the new school year started, he was allowed to return for the eighth grade without going to alternative school.

Near the end of his eighth grade year, another serious incident took place.

Garner said there was a geometry project where students had to draw a house to scale. When he turned his project in, the teacher asked him about several rectangles he drew in the bottom corner.

“He told her that was N….. town. I told him to get out of the room. There were two African American females in the room at the time and one of them started crying.”

Garner added that one of the boys in the class called him a racist as he was walking out. “He replied very loud that’s where all the Fing N word live.” Following that incident, Blackwell was finally sent to alternative school.

On cross examination, Assistant District Attorney Faizah Shabazz got Garner to say despite all the incidents of explosive outbursts, he never witnessed Blackwell physically strike anyone.

Chief Superior Court Judge Stanley Gunter said the trial would resume Sept. 4 at 9 a.m.

 

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9 Comments

  1. Richard Emerson August 15, 2018 at 8:45 pm

    An excellent article by Bill Johnson. It’s ashame that the violent young man named in the article is not receiving psychological or psychiatric help.

    • Bill Johnson August 16, 2018 at 4:03 am

      Thanks Rick. This article makes you mad for what he put folks through, sad for those who were targeted by this bully and disappointed that such a young life is headed for very serious trouble.

    • Crista Leggett August 16, 2018 at 11:24 pm

      The upcoming court hearing on September 4th will help educate the public several things pertaining to the student that have been withheld including how his parents where the ones who actually sent him there based on recommendations pertaining to this teacher’s trainings in specific disorders

      • Bill Johnson August 17, 2018 at 7:28 am

        Hello Crista and thank you for reading Fetch Your News. If you are referring to the parents decision to sent him to alternative school, that was not withheld at all. It is clearly pointed out in the article.

        • Crista Leggett August 17, 2018 at 9:03 am

          I totally agree, yet it was clearly stated in the courtroom and confirmed along with the fact that not 1 person ever felt physically threatened by this student other than the defense’s brother and by the end of his testimony he had answered that he never had seen the child do anything other than verbally explode. This student has ADHD and Intermittent Explosive Disorder which Mr. Garner was supposed to have a specialist degree in

  2. Bill Johnson August 17, 2018 at 9:26 am

    Actually that is not correct either. It was not “clearly stated in the courtroom and confirmed that not one person felt physically threatened.” What was confirmed is that the witness never saw him hit anyone. There is a world of difference. One teacher felt so threatened she refused to have him in her class. Another would not have him in the class unless it was a co-taught class with the witness in the classroom.

  3. Crista Leggett August 17, 2018 at 3:02 pm

    Sir, I truly appreciate your reporting yet I disagree with your accusation that my statements are inaccurate because I can guarantee that they will be proven to be true and not biase. You must remember that there has been 2 hearings so far and another one scheduled for September 4th and that must of the information obtained by the media was from1 person’s testimony doing the 2nd court appearance by the defendant’s brother Pat and not based on the testimonies of the previous 4 witnesses. After reviewing that information than sir you will be able to see where my statements can be proven to be true. PS the student’s actual name is T. Kyler Blackwell not Kaylor Blackwell

    • Bill Johnson August 17, 2018 at 3:06 pm

      Than you for your comments.

  4. Gail Whonic August 23, 2018 at 6:22 pm

    Who allowed him back into 8th grade. No one should be afraid of personal harm from this student.

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