A student resource officer’s actions have been called into question after a substitute teacher was grabbed by the throat and dragged through the hallway of Eagle’s Landing High School in McDonough, Georgia.

Nia King said she has worked at the Henry County school nearly every day since September. During that time, she has been mistaken for a student by the same SRO who is accused of wrapping her arm around the teacher’s throat. She told Atlanta news outlet WSB-TV that she was attempting to stop a brawl between two female students when she was grabbed.

“The girl hits the other girl, and then that’s when the crowd started,” recalled King, 22, when she spoke to the outlet on Friday (March 31). “Once we pushed down the hall, I got trampled from the left to the right of the hall, and then now I’m back into the middle of the fight. As I was back in the middle of the fight, the SRO just grabs me by the neck, and the fight is still continuing to go on, and she dragged me all the way from the middle of the hall towards her office,” she explained.

Once inside the office, the educator alleged that the SRO initially did not explain her course of action. “She asked me do I need EMS, do I need the nurse, and do I need some water,” recalled King. “I just told her, ‘I just need you to leave because you just drug me from that point to this point, and I couldn’t breathe, but you wouldn’t talk.’” She said the chokehold was uncalled for and inappropriate.

The officer temporarily stepped out of the office before returning to explain to King that she was trying to save her after she had been attacked. However, King said she never made physical contact with the two female students who were involved in the hallway altercation. “I couldn’t breathe at one point,” she said about the tight hold the staff member had on her neck. Footage captured by students has been provided to both the Henry County police and the school district, who are each investigating the incident.