Seattle Public Schools has fired the security guard investigated for his use of force on a student in an incident earlier this year at Capitol Hill’s Stevens Elementary .

KUOW reports that David Raybern was fired after the district found he improperly used physical force on the seven-year-old student then lied about the incident during the investigation:

The girl’s mother, Cinetra, said she broke down at work when she read the district’s investigation report. “It made me think of all the [police brutality] situations that have happened just out in the world. And that could have happened to my daughter, she could have died,” said Cinetra, who is being identifying by her middle name to protect her family’s privacy. Cinetra said she hates to think what could have happened if another school staffer had not intervened and yelled at the guard to get off her daughter…

Raybern is white, and the student is Black, KUOW reports.

CHS reported on a July meeting of the Seattle School Board addressing the incident:

“Director Rankin and I are exploring, along with staff, what are the impacts and what is the possibility of an outright ban on isolation and restraints especially in our district and focusing solely on de-escalation methods,” school board member Brandon Hersey said over Zoom. “That way we remove the ability for harm to be done to our students physically yet we still have an opportunity to reevaluate and recenter ourselves in de-escalation.”

The district has not yet updated its “physical intervention” policy.

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