Right off the bat, Larry Brumfield wanted people to know he did not want to paint any students in a negative light.
Brumfield said the student who threw a chair at him was, "just a child".
Brumfield said the student needs support.
The 73-year old substitute teacher said the student wasn't even on the roll in his class but had wandered in and then refused to leave.
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Brumfield said the assistant principal removed the boy, but he came back, cursing and throwing a roll of paper towels at him.
"I said, 'Why did you do that?', he said, 'Because I felt like it,'" recalled Brumfield.
"There was profanity involved," Brumfield said.
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Brumfield said he engaged with the student verbally, something he regrets, but he didn't expect a chair to come flying across the room.
"Fortunately I saw it out of my peripheral vision. It hit my leg. My leg and my head. It didn't hurt as much but I felt the blood on my face," he said.
"I picked it up and threw it back at him."
This all took place while students recorded it all on their phones. Larry said about four or five students tried to help him but most gathered with his attacker, laughing and cheering.
The 73-year-old retiree says if DeSoto will have him, he plans to be right back in the classroom after spring break.
"I came up from the ghettos of Gary, Indiana, Chicago. I'm thinking as an idealist, I have some things up here I could share with people that might help them."
DeSoto ISD made the decision to cancel school Friday, so teachers could meet and come up with stronger discipline plans, something Brumfield says is the absolute right move.
"If the statements they made about a new day and a new sheriff if that's really going to happen because I wouldn't mind being a part of that," he said.
"If they say that and mean it, it was worthwhile. I'll take a scar on the head for that."
Brumfield's daughter told us she begged him to quit, but he said he needed to be in the classroom giving back.
Brumfield told us he retired with enough money to take care of himself, but he works because two grandchildren live with him and he needs the extra money to raise those kids.
He says if he has to work, he thinks being in a school where he can try to give back and help kids get on the right track is where he should be.
