Law&Crime Sidebar - Dad Confronts Teens Inside Classroom: ‘Apologize to My Daughter’

Episode Date: March 23, 2024

Aaron Thomas, 38, is under arrest in New Jersey after he was seen on video entering a high school classroom and yelling at two students. He’s now facing assault and terroristic threat charges for the tense encounter. Law&Crime’s Jesse Weber analyzes the viral video and why parents are now calling out school administrators and the teacher for their reaction with New Jersey criminal defense attorney Mike Koribanics.PLEASE SUPPORT THE SHOW: If you’re ever injured in an accident, you can check out Morgan & Morgan. You can submit a claim in 8 clicks or less without having to leave your couch. To start your claim, visit: https://www.forthepeople.com/LCSidebarHOST:Jesse Weber: https://twitter.com/jessecordweberLAW&CRIME SIDEBAR PRODUCTION:YouTube Management - Bobby SzokeVideo Editing - Michael DeiningerScript Writing & Producing - Savannah WilliamsonGuest Booking - Alyssa Fisher & Diane KayeSocial Media Management - Vanessa BeinSTAY UP-TO-DATE WITH THE LAW&CRIME NETWORK:Watch Law&Crime Network on YouTubeTV: https://bit.ly/3td2e3yWhere To Watch Law&Crime Network: https://bit.ly/3akxLK5Sign Up For Law&Crime's Daily Newsletter: https://bit.ly/LawandCrimeNewsletterRead Fascinating Articles From Law&Crime Network: https://bit.ly/3td2IqoLAW&CRIME NETWORK SOCIAL MEDIA:Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lawandcrime/Twitter: https://twitter.com/LawCrimeNetworkFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/lawandcrimeTwitch: https://www.twitch.tv/lawandcrimenetworkTikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@lawandcrimeSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Wondery Plus subscribers can binge all episodes of this Law and Crimes series ad-free right now. Join Wondry Plus in the Wondery app Apple Podcasts or Spotify. Agent Nate Russo returns in Oracle 3, Murder at the Grandview, the latest installment of the gripping Audible Original series. When a reunion at an abandoned island hotel turns deadly, Russo must untangle accident from murder. But beware, something sinister lurks in the grand. View Shadows. Joshua Jackson delivers a bone-chilling performance in this supernatural thriller that

will keep you on the edge of your seat. Don't let your fears take hold of you as you dive into this addictive series. Love thrillers with a paranormal twist? The entire Oracle trilogy is available on Audible. Listen now on Audible. A father picking up his daughter from her high school ends up allegedly confronting another student barging into the classroom and cornering the teenager. While he demanded, the boy apologized to his daughter and the charges he now faces in connection with this viral incident. We sit down with New Jersey criminal defense attorney Mike Corbinix. Welcome to Sidebar. Presented by Law and Crime, I'm Jesse Weber. An angry dad is under arrest and trending all over the country after he was filmed reportedly

intimidating a teenager inside of a New Jersey high school. You might have seen this. Another student posted video of this incident to social media. It soon took the entire internet by storm. A lot of people talking about it. So police say the man identified as 38-year-old Aaron Thomas barged into a classroom at Paulsboro High School in New Jersey last week. And he allegedly came to the school around lunchtime to take his daughter home. She was apparently having problems with a fellow student who she claimed was harassing her.

Now, it's unclear how the father was able to get all the way to the classroom or why someone was filming it in the first place. But the video shows someone knocking on the door. door a few times before it opens. Thomas allegedly goes inside and points his way toward a student in a red shirt before confronting him. Louie, no, babe. This is it right here? You got to follow my daughter?

I didn't. You got to follow my daughter? Apologize him to my door. I didn't do nothing to it. I didn't do nothing to it. You're what the . Apologizing my goodness. Now.

And then another student in the back corner seems to come to the boy's defense, and Thomas turns his attention to him for a moment before going back to the first boy. No, don't know what? I didn't do this here, bro. Now, it's hard on the street. What are you on to do it?

I apologize. What are I? I apologize to my boy. I didn't do on to it. I didn't do on to it. Now, it's hard to hear exactly what everybody is saying, but the teen boy makes a, comment about photos?

Thomas. Thomas, I didn't know. I didn't. I didn't do no picture. I didn't do one. I didn't do one. I didn't do it. Thomas makes a few more comments to the other student wearing black. And that's when the male teacher finally gets involved putting his hand on Thomas's back, trying to calm him down. Seriously. I'm just proving the point. I'm just proving the point that they're going to be in here talking about my daughter.

So from there, the boy wearing black and Thomas, they continue to allegedly confront each other as the teacher tries to get Thomas to leave. If I come here again, I'm a slight car. You're right here and do it. You heard what I said, boy. You heard what I said, boy. And that's when Thomas goes back to the corner yet again.

Come on. Come on. What's the problem? No, no, no, no. Police alleged that during that during that I don't care of the boy's wrong with you, bro. Police alleged that during that scuffle there, Thomas grabbed the boy's arm, allegedly also says, I don't care who it is.

I'll knock anyone out of this school. Thomas finally leaves the classroom. That's where the video cuts off. Just wow, I would say the least. And according to police, the teacher told him that he wasn't near his radio to call for security when Thomas came into the classroom, so he did what he felt he had to do to de-escalate the situation. But the school didn't call police for another few hours. That's according to police documents. So Thomas, he ended up being arrested that same afternoon. He was charged with two counts

of third-degree terroristic threat, simple assault, trespassing, and disorderly conduct. He was released on bail the next day, told he can't have any contact with the students involved or their family's not a shocker there. Let me bring on right now, New Jersey, criminal defense attorney, Mike Corabatics to talk about this. Mike, you knew we were going to call you about this story. Really upsetting to see, but I will tell you, people are divided about this. People in the community, people online, should Thomas have been arrested in charge? Because some are saying this is just a father protecting his daughter.

What's your take? I think it's an interesting issue here because the law is not really as clear as one would anticipate on this. and it is open to a lot of interpretation. What I mean by that is people are going to, listen, the law is the law, but we still live as human beings. And there's emotions involved here. There was a father who felt this child was at risk. And quite frankly, we're speaking here without a lot of background.

We don't know if he has any prior incidences like this. If he is a threat, things of that nature. However, if most of these things did not happen at the school in New Jersey, These would be basically, we call them disorderly conduct offenses or disorderly persons offenses in New Jersey, which is across the country really its misdemeanor. It wouldn't really be a crime except for the terroristic threat and the fact that the interpretation that he made a threat out of school took it from a simple assault to a fourth degree crime just because of where it happened. That's a really, really good point, the location of this where this went down and using these kinds of terms of like knock you out, or fire, you know, using the term fire, you interpret that what you mean. But I'm glad you mentioned that the location of where this happened has a legal significance.

But a defense of, hey, I was just standing up for my daughter, that doesn't really work legally because he allegedly went onto these premises, interrupted a classroom, went up to two students. It's all caught on tape. Could a defense be, even to the prosecutors, whether they want to prosecute this or not, or charges or even to a potential jury, hey, I was just defending my daughter. That, I don't know, is that a defense? It's an interesting question, you ask, because if in fact, they don't see this as a criminal offense and just a disorderly person's offense, this matter would not be tried in front

of a jury, it would be tried in front of a judge in municipal court who would be the decider of fact. It'd be interesting to me, this may be one of those instances as a defense lawyer, and it may downed off the charts where if you feel you have very strong facts in your favor and your client can testify well, that you may want this to go in front of a jury for the same reason just discussed, Jesse, is you're going to have parents on that jury who say, wait a minute, is this really a criminal offense when you're just trying to make sure your child is safe by others? It wasn't like you went to a school where, and I understand the law stands against

it, but there were people there. There was a teacher. there and the staff had to wait three hours to decide did somebody really break the law here? Well, well, their argument would be, their argument would be, and I've heard this before, is that, well, I mentioned the radio situation, but look, we didn't want to escalate a situation even further, right? If we immediately call police, it could have turned what is a situation that the teacher was able to calm him down, able to get him out of the room versus something that would have turned a lot worse.

And I guess there's something about that that gave me pause. in terms of the responsibility of the teachers and the school district, also whether that could be used as a defense for the parent, the father. Hey, listen, if I was such a problem, if I was such a danger, why didn't they call police immediately? There is something to be said that if they did that, if it could have escalated the situation even further. What do you think about that?

Well, that's always an interesting question because there's never right or wrong answer because what if something unfortunate happened and immediately he punched one of the kids or something like that? or within a few minutes, then the other argument would have been, wait a minute, why didn't you call the police immediately? You're not trained to de-escalate people as a teacher. You're trained to teach students and to assure safety. But obviously, this teacher, based on what I saw and listen to video, we could see very quick in a few seconds. But when you go to trial, you can watch that few seconds for hours to try to evaluate it and cross-examine and see exactly

where it was going. But obviously, this teacher didn't feel that kind of threat and thought he could control it by just putting his arm around them. What a story about taking matters into your own hands, sometimes not the best decision. And I'm going to tell you what, when it comes to protecting your legal rights, you definitely don't want to do this on your own. You want a valued law firm in your corner. And that is especially true in personal injury cases, which can be very difficult to sort through. We'll enter Morgan and Morgan, America's largest injury law firm and our proud sponsor here on sidebar with a thousand attorneys. Morgan and Morgan is all about fighting for the compensation that you're entitled to, even if that means having to go to trial. You see,

Morgan and Morgan, they don't settle for lowball insurance offers. In fact, they've recently secured verdicts of $6.8 million in New York, $12 million in Florida, and $26 million in Philadelphia. All of these, by the way, significantly higher than the highest insurance offers in these cases. But one of the best things about Morgan and Morgan is how easy they have made it for their clients. They have completely modernized the process from submitting your claim to talking to your legal team. It can all be done on your smartphone. That's it. You can see if you have a case in minutes and an attorney will review your case in eight clicks or less.

So if you're injured, you can start by easily submitting a claim at for the people.com slash LC sidebar or by dialing pound law. That's pound 529 on your phone. By the way, if he went into the school, let's just think about this or say, if he had the right to go into the school because he was going to pick his daughter up, he would have had the right to be in the school, maybe not necessarily a right to be in the classroom, but let's assume he did for a minute. And he went in and just, and he didn't mention anything about knocking anybody out or touching them or using any violent language. If he just said, apologize to my daughter, I heard you've been talking bad about her, apologize to her. and if he just went that way, do you think he would have been charged? I don't know.

That's an interesting question because the fact is, the big question here is how did he get to the classroom? Right. Yeah. I mean, I'm one of those old guys. It's been a long time since my kids were in a grammar school or a high school,

but I always remember that you just couldn't walk into a school. You had to check in at the office, and they would tell you if you could go or not. And I think that's the biggest problem he's going to have, and that's the biggest problem with him looking at a criminal trespassing statute because it was a school where he went and trespass. And by the way, it has also been reported that whatever Thomas's daughter told him about that situation, that conflict she had with that other student, it may not be accurate.

There has been reporting to suggest that these claims might have been exaggerated, that this idea of bullying didn't really happen. So if that's true that he was given incorrect information about, what was happening with his daughter does that help him in any way well i think whether it's correct or incorrect is sort of irrelevant for types of a trial because what the jury or whoever if it's a judge finding in fact is going to have to say was was it common sense what he did even if he was under the wrong situation if he believed that to be true his intent was to correct something not to hurt someone uh but that this is gets very kind like it's so funny because

Because when you talk about a simple charge like this, the facts get so complicated. Right. Because he's so open interpretation. Do you think he's going to take a play? It depends. It depends on a lot of things. It depends on his exposure. When I say exposure, is he looking at right now, if he has no prior criminal record,

he's looking at a presumption against incarceration in New Jersey because of third degree or less, the charge to crime charge. So that would be something to take into consideration. A lot of times it's difficult to make that decision because you always know what you have in your hands with a plea agreement. But under the law, if you're not guilty and you don't believe you're guilty, you should not take a plea. And talk to me again about the school if they face any legal liability here. The reason I say that is because the parents of that 15-year-old boy that Thomas had originally had focused on, let's say that, they've called Thomas a coward, and they said, we're talking about this, I said this to local media, quote, we're talking about two 15-year-old children doing

children nonsense and a father taking matters into his own hands, and not to mention how the teacher in the classroom stood there idly by watching as this all happened, while in a statement the Paulsboro School District Superintendent said in part, quote, due to the ongoing nature of this investigation, additional details about the situation cannot be released to the public, Safety and security of our staff and students is paramount. And fortunate situations such as these give us an opportunity to reflect and analyze current practices to further strengthen the district's safety and security procedures to ensure that our schools are a safe place for all students and staff. And they also indicated that they are cooperating to the Palsboro Police Department to continue to investigate what happened here.

They've communicated with all the involved parties in accordance with district protocols. Is the school district a little concern right now? Well, I think they're always concerned because this becomes a high publicity type of thing. I don't know looking at what we saw with the video is, I mean, did this teacher, who's a teacher, he's not a trained security officer, but he did seem like his intent was to keep this at a, as you said earlier, to sort of mellow this out, not get everybody to get more involved. So he didn't confront him because would have confronting helped someone who would have. already you could see he was emotionally upset he tried to calm him down and separate him that's what

it looked like in a video and i think that would be a good argument for him i also wonder if he wasn't there what might have happened but i'll tell you this much i'm very curious for this video to be posted because i'm curious to see the comments i'm curious to see if people are like he 100% uh broke the law i mean he is innocent until proven guilty but the point is that some might say no what he did was 100% wrong guilty should go you know should have to be held responsible versus other people who might say I don't think what he did was wrong I don't think he should have been charged

I'm very curious to see the comments on this video about it but what I can tell you is the analysis has been spot on and the analysis is something we can definitely hold Trudeau because of Mike Corbinics thanks so much for coming on Mike appreciate I feel like the last time I had John we talked about another outrageous New Jersey story

I don't remember what it was but I hope you don't hold me personally that I love New Jersey it's just unfortunately this is where it happens amenities are outrageous, so it's okay. Yeah, no comment. No comment. All right. Mike Corbinics, thanks so much. Appreciate it. Thank you for having me on.

All right, everybody. That is all we have for you right now here on Sidebar. Thank you so much for joining us. As always, please subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, wherever you get your podcast. I'm Jesse Weber. Speak to you next time. You can binge all episodes of this law and crime series ad free right now on Wondery Plus. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify.