A teacher in Bayonne is being hailed as a hero after she used her body as a human shield to protect a teenager from a group attacking him.
Cathy Hurley, 56, stood guard over the helpless boy outside of William Shemin Midtown Community School.
Frankie Sielski, Hurley’s daughter, says she had just passed the group of teens on her way to her car and asked the boys if they were going to fight. That is all they did.
Sielski says her mom saw a group of teens and knew something was not right.
Soon after, the group threw another teen to the ground and hit him in the head over and over with punches and kicks.
Hurley then did what came naturally and jumped on top of the teen victim to protect him.
“This woman just showed up out of nowhere,” Sielski asked. “She is not with the group. She just shows up out of the blue, and you lose her. After that, you see her body on top of them. It was just like being with an angel.”
Police say the person was knocked out and taken to the hospital.
In a statement, John Niesz, the superintendent of the Bayonne School District, said, “I can tell you this: that teacher is what everyone who works and lives in Bayonne is all about.”
She also said that Sielski was proud of her mom and did not think it was strange that she reacted the way she did.
“That is how she was raised,” Sielski said. “I was raised that way to stick up for the underdog and I know that her responding was an instinct.”
Five teens, ages 15 to 18, are being charged with aggravated assault, putting an injured victim in danger, and riot.
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