A former substitute teacher charged with starting a student ‘fight club’ at a Connecticut high school has said he encouraged the sparring because he wanted to ‘befriend’ his students.
Police say cellphone videos show 23-year-old Ryan Fish encouraging students as they slapped each other in the middle of a classroom at Montville High School.
Fish pleaded not guilty on Thursday to two counts of risking injury to a child and four counts of second-degree reckless endangerment and breach of the peace – including reckless endangerment and risk of injury to a minor.
Police say that Ryan Fish (above) can be heard giving directions to the students who were fighting and encouraging them to continue doing so – he denies reckless endangerment charges
Fish was fired from Montville High School (above) in October. Police began investigating in December after a student told a social worker he had been beaten at school
He has denied directly facilitating the fights and said he thought the students were just being ‘rambunctious’.
‘I just try to be the teacher that the kids could come to and actually express themselves and actually work through their issues, kind of have a social thing,’ Fish said, according to the arrest warrant application.
Fish, who was 22 at the time of the alleged incidents, added that he wanted to let the students ‘be teenagers and get their energy out’.
He admitted to egging them on at one point, according to police. He told officers that in all there were four fights between September and October.
Outside court Thursday, Fish from Bozrah, maintained that he didn’t facilitate the fights and said he didn’t know they were about to happen before they started.
‘I didn’t necessarily let them do it. I just wasn’t aware of what to do. I didn’t know how to handle the situation,’nbcconnecticut.com quoted him as saying.
Fish was fired in October. Police began investigating in December after a student told a social worker he had been beaten at school.
Police after viewing the videos say Fish can be heard giving directions to the students who were fighting and encouraging them to continue doing so.
He was also seen moving a trash can out of the way to allow a fight to continue.
The videos also showed what appeared to be one of the students throwing up in a garbage can.
Police also gathered testimony from teenagers who said they had participated in the fights and confronted Fish with the evidence.
He said he knew what he did was wrong and should have reported it to administration, the state police report says.
Fish said that he thought at first the fights were just horseplay, but during the last incident things went too far.
‘The truth is, I’m an idiot and wanted to befriend them,’ he told investigators, according to police documents. He added that he and the students are close in age and said ‘I’m immature’.
When Fish appeared in court Thursday, a public defender entered a plea of not guilty.
Outside court, he said he was sorry, nbcconnecticut reported.
‘I am so sorry, because I’ll be totally honest, I was trying to reach the kids. I thought these kids are just being rambunctious, I thought they just needed an out,’ he said.
‘If I had known what it was doing to the kids I would have done something completely different. I would have gotten out of that situation immediately, but I thought I was reaching those kids in some way.
‘I really did and I thought that that would help me get to them. But, I didn’t realize what was happening at the time. I didn’t know. I didn’t have the training to see what was going on. I am just so sorry.’