Officer pepper sprays student at Clarke Central High School

Huu Kim Vo

By Joe Johnson

A police officer this week used pepper spray at Clarke Central high School to subdue a student who was described as being unruly.

According to Athens-Clarke County police, the incident happened at about 3:25 p.m. Thursday when an officer who was patrolling the South Milledge Avenue school campus was called inside to “redirect” a student identified as 20-year-old Huu Kim Vo.

The officer wrote in a report that Vo was upset and hard to understand but was able to learn from others about how Vo had been involved in an incident with a female student and warned school officials, "If I get in trouble for this it’s going to be bad for you.”

When the officer tried to get Vo to leave a classroom, the student grabbed his book bag that the officer was holding, and while struggling for the item the student struck the officer’s chest, knocking off a police radio, according to the report.

Vo reportedly then stepped back and “bowed and apologized” to the officer, according to the report, but when the officer tried to arrest the student, he resisted while CCHS Principal Swade Huff assisted with the handcuffing and continued to do so after being warned that he would be pepper sprayed.

After he was pepper sprayed, the student had his face rinsed off by the officer, the report noted, and he was checked out by EMS personnel before being booked into the county jail on charges of simple battery on a police officer and felony obstruction of law enforcement.

“When the incident had ended I was informed that Vo was highly trained in mixed martial arts,” the officer wrote in the report.

The report did not indicate whether the student had utilized his fighting skills while resisting arrest.

The principal barred Vo from CCHS for two years.