Florida teacher arrested after spraying disinfectant on students, police say
A veteran Florida teacher was arrested at Largo High School for apparently going too far in the fight against the coronavirus.
According to a police report from the Pinellas County Sheriff’s Office, deputies responded Wednesday to a disturbance call at the Largo school and made contact with Christina Reszetar, who teaches Exceptional Student Education.
Reszetar told officers that four of her in-person students had refused to properly wear their masks and she became agitated.
The 51-year-old then admitted spraying “Claire disinfectant” into the “path of their faces and bodies.” A product description reveals that the hospital-grade hard and soft surface aerosol sanitizer kills “99.9 percent of germs.”
The alleged incident was reportedly caught on camera by some of the students’ cellphones and reviewed by investigators.
Reszetar was arrested on three counts of child abuse with great bodily harm and spent the night behind bars. Before letting her go home without posting any bond Thursday, the judge reprimanded the educator, TV station CBS 17 reported.
“I think I can fairly characterize this as a severely misguided attempt at discipline,” the judge told her, the station reported.
As of Monday, the Florida woman was still listed as a math teacher on the Pinellas County School Board’s website. A spokeswoman for Pinellas County Schools told the Miami Herald that because the Reszetar case is still “open,” the agency cannot comment.
The longtime teacher’s Facebook account appears to have been disabled.
This story was originally published January 11, 2021 at 2:31 PM.
