Stefanie Sanabria, former math teacher, has been charged with second-degree strangulation, first-degree reckless endangerment and risk of injury to a minor…
After she put her student, a 5th grader, to sleep with a chokehold – while showing off her “Jiu-Jitsu skills”.

According to The Hour, The incident took place at Brookside Elementary School in Norwalk, on February 24.
And, according to the assistant principal’s police statement, Sanabria told him:

Since it was Friday, I wanted to do something fun with my math group.

Sanabria told the group that she was offering martial arts classes after school and advised them that she was trained in Jiu-Jitsu.
So, as she told the assistant principal, she demonstrated moves with the class – with one of them being a chokehold.

A few students volunteered to participate in the chokehold demonstration, with Sanabria telling them to tap her elbow when they feel some pressure, so she could release them.

Two students, 10 and 11 years old, were placed in the submission before the boy passed out. She then placed an 11-year-old-boy in a Rear Naked Choke who “failed to tap on her elbow” – and passed out, according to the warrant.

The warrant said that several students started crying after seeing the boy going unconscious, with one student describing the boy as “going unconscious for several seconds”.

And when the police spoke to the child who went unconscious, he explained:

[During the chokehold], I wanted to go longer than the other students and everything went black.

The boy also told the police that when he woke up, he was laying on the floor, and was afterwards placed in a chair.

Sanabria subsequently told the assistant principal that she displayed “a lack of judgment”, and was arrested by the police.