San Francisco

Secretly Recorded Video Shows SF Teacher Admitting to Striking Students

Antonio Mankini is the treasurer for a teachers labor union and recently taught at James Lick Middle School

A teacher who is on leave to work for the labor union in San Francisco is under investigation Tuesday night after a newly released, secretly recorded video appears to show the man talking about how he has assaulted students and gotten away with it.

The video of Antonio Mankini appears to show the treasurer of the United Educators of San Francisco admitting to assaulting students.

"I clothes-lined a kid one time," the teacher says in the the video. "Kid went down."

The union official isn't working as a teacher now, but his LinkedIn page says he taught at James Lick Middle School from 2007 to 2014.

"I can see grabbing a kid; I can see throwing him up against a locker. Not that I've done that; maybe once or twice," Mankini says in the video.

A controversial group called Project Veritas posted the 2015 video, featuring James O'Keefe reporting, Tuesday night on YouTube. In it, Mankini also tells the person who is posing as a teacher how to get away with assaulting a student.

"Maybe you didn't hit him; maybe he walked into your fist," Mankini says in the video.

Project Veritas says it posted the video to try to expose wrongdoing.

San Francisco Unified School District officials said they are investigating, but otherwise declined to comment.

Union leaders said Mankini is now on leave while they also look into the video. The union released a statement Tuesday, saying, "The deceptive video clips that O’Keefe has posted are troubling, and we are committed to a swift, full and fair investigation so that all appropriate actions can be taken. UESF has taken action to investigate this matter and has placed the videotaped individual on administrative leave while that investigation is underway."

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