A Norcross man is accused of roughing up a 12-year-old boy and choking him after the boy's "horseplay" with his daughter turned contentious, police said.
The girl's family said she was being taunted and bullied when her father intervened.
Yaking Toray-Darnell McNeil, 33, is charged with aggravated assault and cruelty to children in the Tuesday incident. He is in the Gwinnett County Detention Center.
A police officer was called to Pinckneyville Middle School to investigate the alleged incident at a bus stop in the Ashby apartment complex on Hillandale Drive that morning.
According to a police report, the boy told the officer that he was playing with the 11-year-old girl when she pushed him and he landed in some thorny plants. Upset, he grabbed her hoodie and she fell.
The boy said as he was standing up, McNeil grabbed him and threw him back down, police said. The boy hit his head on the pavement. He said McNeil then started to choke him and threatened to kill him, police said. The school bus arrived as the boy was getting up, but he did not report the incident at the time.
The girl's mother, who identified herself as C.J. McNeil, said her daughter is the new girl at school and other children have been giving her a hard time. She said she already had talked to a teacher about the harassment.
She said the boy attacked her daughter Tuesday, grabbing her by her hair and "slinging her like a rag doll." Her father heard her crying, her mother said.
She said McNeil works hard and looks after his family.
"I understand that there are consequences to his actions," she told the AJC on Thursday.
The school resource officer provided the police officer with four statements from students who saw the alleged incident. The boy said his head was hurting, and his mother arrived to take him to the hospital.
The officer then went to the apartment building, where McNeil was arrested.
McNeil said he saw his daughter on the ground from his window, then rushed outside and confronted the boy. He said the boy admitted hitting her. McNeil admitted grabbing the boy's neck and holding him down, according to the police report.
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