Sherri Davis, the teacher caught on tape whomping on a charter-school student, is launching a PR offensive.
This morning she was on Good Morning America, where she told host George Stephanopoulos what she briefly told reporters: while she takes responsibility for losing her control, blame the damn school for the atmosphere that fueled the incident.
Davis went into more details about the event than she did at her press conference here last week.
"The day starts off with utter chaos -- there's a fight that I am having to deal with, just minutes before the video with a 16-year-old boy...These kids are just, basically, laying around on the floor, just being hostile. And this young lady was in the middle of the floor. The door was locked shut and the kids were there, kind of mimicking her. This particular young man, Isaiah, was bouncing around in a threatening, bullying position," Davis said. "I have adrenaline that is already building up with the fight that just happened minutes before."
She also notes the "young lady" was white, while most of the kids surrounding her are black.
She says the kid she beat had assaulted kids and teachers; his mother denied that to a KTRK reporter after the interview.
When the tape is shown, Davis talks about how teachers need to be protected, and Stephanopoulos rightly notes that at the moment, the kid needed to be protected from her.
"Someone should have stepped in," Davis says.