A Florida superintendent suggested Thursday a teacher be fired after the educator allegedly drowned two raccoons in front of students during a science class.
A student recorded a video that appeared to show Forest High School teacher Dewie Brewton drowning the caged raccoons by submerging them in water, WFTV 9 reported. Brewton allegedly drowned the raccoons because the animals had killed chickens the school’s students and faculty raised.
“My friend said that the class before that, they were [putting] the water in the buckets,” a freshman student who asked not to be named told WFTV 9. He said the raccoons died after being under water for several minutes.
“They finally took the cage out of the water, and they trapped it into another smaller cage, where the top of the cage would go down into the water,” the student continued. “And that’s how they killed the second one.”
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While Florida’s Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission is investigating the incident, it reported that killing nuisance animals is legal, though certain restrictions require them to be killed humanely. The Florida Department of Health is also investigating the situation, and the state attorney will decide if Brewton, who is currently on paid leave, will be charged.
Individuals can shoot nuisance raccoons on private property during the day, the FWC states but does not seem to offer publicly available restrictions on how they cannot be killed.
“While law enforcement tells us the teacher may not have done anything illegal, his actions before students are certainly questionable,” a Marion County Public Schools spokesman stated.
“We want people to know he had them in cages; he had them trapped,” the male student’s mother said. “He could have had somebody come and relocate the animals.” (RELATED: Yale Has 14 Times More Emotional Support Animals Than It Did In 2017)
Marion County Public Schools has employed Brewton for over 30 years. The teacher is popular among students and has not had any previous infractions on record.
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