The New York Daily News obtained video of the teacher Stephan Hudson pushing around ninth-grader Kristoff John, 16, after his student ID wasn't working properly.
"He asked me if I was disrespecting him, and he was getting hyper and enraged," the 16-year-old John told Eyewitness News reporter Jeff Pegues over the phone. "He started punching me...Excuse my language, but I was like what the hell?"
He says he's relieved that finally the truth is emerging about what really happened back in March at the George Westinghouse Career and Technical Education High School.
Hudson and the principal blame the boy for the fight, and even his own mother didn't believe him until she saw the video.
"The school lied to me," Diane John said. "Obviously they lied to me."
She says Hudson told her that her son was the aggressor and that she even got a call from the principal.
"Actually, they said it was a minor incident," she said. "They told me a different story. My son actually told me the truth, but I did not believe him at the time because the school told me a different version."
Hudson outweighs the 5-foot-3, 120-pound student by more than 150 pounds.
"The school is saying I was the aggressor, but really I was the victim," said John, who has since moved to Grenada to live with his aunt.
The Department of Education is in the process of firing Hudson, who's been a teacher since 1990.
The principal is also being investigated about a possible cover up.
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