A student at Florida Atlantic University in Boca Raton was reportedly subdued with a taser after a violent outburst in a class discussing evolution.
Jonatha Carr's apparent meltdown, in which she hit another student, threw punches, and allegedly threatened to kill the professor and other students, was recorded on a cell phone camera and has quickly gone viral, the University Press reports. (Watch clips from the incident above, or the entire video below.)
Fellow student Rachel Bustamante wrote that Carr was asking “absurd questions” during a review section about female selection among peacocks, and eventually went on to ask why “evolution kills black people” in an increasingly insistent manner.
When Dr. Stephen Kajiura apparently couldn't satisfactorily address Carr's question, she began yelling as students cleared the area around her desk, rose from her seat and hit a male classmate in the forehead as she screamed in his face.
“She became increasingly belligerent,” Kajiura told the Press. “It was at this point, a highly emotionally charged individual who was no longer capable of responding rationally. She was threatening to kill both me and the students in the class.”
Carr was finally restrained by a school official whom she began pushing, prompting a brief physical confrontation.
“Clearly, this person has some SERIOUS emotional issues within herself and the discussion of PEACOCKS was the catalyst to the unleashing of this insanity,” Bustamante wrote.
Vice president of student affairs Dr. Charles Brown said in a statement that police took Carr off campus and to a hospital for involuntary examination under the Florida Mental Health Act, commonly called the Baker Act. A second video shows a limp Carr being dragged to a patrol car by several officers; WSVN reports police used a Taser to subdue Carr once she was inside the vehicle.
"In light of today’s information, the Dean of Students is taking immediate action regarding this student," he said.