Columbia, SC-- A teacher said she was trying to make a point during class, but the lesson may have backfired. The veteran teacher may end up with a criminal record instead.
Officers said a Beaufort County middle teacher was arrested after calling a student a "Jew" and dragging him under a table last week.
Bluffton police said the teacher is Patricia Mulholland and she turned herself in Monday to face charges of Assault and Public Disorderly Conduct.
Officers said they were told the 12-year-old student was sharpening his pencil Wednesday, when Mulholland grabbed him by his collar, telling him "come here, Jew," then dragged him under a table and said "this is what the Nazis do to Jews."
The boy told his parents, who called police.
A lawyer for the teacher said she was using the incident to make a point. He claims the teacher, who has been teaching for 23 years, was just trying to teach a lesson about the Holocaust.
Mulholland's lawyer Robert Ferguson says the teacher was just trying to show how random Nazi cruelty could be.
WLTX