A lunch monitor and principal were fired in Lorain, Ohio after the cafeteria worker forced a 9-year-old Black student to eat food out of the trash, WHNT reports. The Lorain City School District recently released surveillance footage of the incident, which the girl’s family plans to use in federal court.

According to the family’s lawsuit, the incident occurred at Palm Elementary School last December. The video footage shows the fourth-grader finishing her lunch and throwing away an unwanted item – a waffle – before a lunch monitor retrieves the food from the trash can and gives it back to her. The cafeteria worker was identified by WKYC News as paraprofessional staff member Monika Sommers-Fridenstine.

“What we see is a student finish with her lunch… again, a student finish with her lunch and she goes to throw the lunch away like hundreds and thousands of students across the country do every day,” one of the family’s lawyers, Jared Klebanow, told WHNT.

“We see in the video this monitor, the named defendant, go ahead and grab the waffle out of the garbage and she appears to instruct the student to go get a paper towel, go back to her seat,” he continued. “She places the waffle at the table and then for a matter of minutes is talking with her, instructing her — as we know from the victim’s standpoint — that she needs to eat this waffle that was in the garbage and the monitor goes as far as to sit right next to her, as is alleged in the complaint, and intimidate her into doing so.”

Klebanow said watching the 34-minute surveillance footage, which is blurred to protect the students’ identities, was difficult for the child and her family as it brought back the feelings of humiliation she initially suffered.

“Even though the mother knew that this occurred because she trusted her daughter, it doesn’t make it any easier to watch it happen,” he said.

According to the Lorain City School District, the student threw away a packaged food item and Sommers-Fridenstine removed it from the trash, wiped it off and gave it back to the girl to eat. The lunch monitor was fired, as was the school’s principal, Debra Pustulka, who was reportedly nearby and knew about the incident but failed to report it.

The family intends to use the video as part of their federal lawsuit. Klebanow added that they have been asking repeatedly to view the footage, but were only recently allowed to see it. The family also did not receive the footage from the school district.

“It certainly solidifies the student’s story and you know, unfortunately, in our world and society today, had that video not been there, it might have just been a child’s word against a teacher, an administrator, which is a tough spot to be in,” Klebanow added about the footage.

According to the lawsuit, the girl’s family is seeking an undetermined amount of money and claim her rights were violated. The lawsuit also says the child had to seek out mental health treatment after the traumatic event and asks for an admission of wrongdoing and collaborative effort to prevent anything similar from happening in the future. See a clip of the surveillance video below.