An incident between a teacher and a student occurred Friday in Santa Monica High School. A cell phone video reveals that science and wrestling teacher, Mark Black is wrestling a student to the ground in a classroom. It is said that the student attacked the teacher because the teacher discovered drugs on the student. Mark Black got suspended because of the confrontation between him and the student. About 10,000 people have liked the Facebook page  “We Support Coach Black of Samohi” to show their support to Mark Black.

According to Matt Stevens, Santa Monica-Malibu Unified District Official, De la Torre stated, “It’s a huge controversy when teachers put their hands on students.” It is very controversial whose fault it truly was because the teacher was just defending himself. Brent Wright, a former assistant of Black’s stated that Black was “one of the most loving and compassionate” person he has ever met.

When asked a junior from Animo Pat Brown if she believed that it was right for the teacher to defend himself and fight back she responded, “I think it is okay as long as he did not try to hurt the student and as long as he did not grab him in an inappropriate way.”

Many people are in favor of the teacher because they don’t believe he did anything wrong by defending himself. On the other hand, some people believe it is wrong that he wrestled the student. There are certain situations when it is okay to defend yourself. An example is this, the student was the one who started and the teacher just defended himself while trying to restrain him.