CAIRO, NY (WTEN/CNN) – A classmate told Crystal Williams-Phillips he had bullets and intended to harm students at their school, so she punched him in the face.
Williams-Phillips was suspended by Cairo-Durham High School outside Albany, NY, but she said the threat was for real and she had to act.
“I punched the kid in the face because he looked me in the eyes and told me that death was a joke,” she said.
Police are now investigating the incident, and the student who made the threat to Williams-Phillips has also been suspended.
The freshman said “I feel that he was a dangerous person” and that the student who made the threat “admitted it to me and admitted it to other students.”
The student actually having ammunition, Williams-Phillips said, compelled her to do something in light of the recent violence in Florida and in numerous other high-profile incidents at schools.
“The kid had bullets and that was even scarier for me because something could’ve gone wrong if I hadn’t stepped in and done something,” she said.
Williams-Phillips is now concerned, however, about her college prospects. She said she was worried the suspension would remain on her record without context for prospective universities.
“It means a lot that I am in honors and I don’t want that to be taken away from me,” she said. “And I understand that punching him in the face wasn’t the best solution, but if I hadn’t none of this would’ve worked out the way it did.”
Her stepfather Jeffery Grover echoed those concerns, but said: “She’s a hero in my eyes.”
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