An ugly incident in Ford Hall on Monday left one University student in jail, one teaching assistant in the hospital and one meter stick missing.
Dominic Arnold, a third-year physical therapy student, was taken into police custody Monday following the severe beating of his calculus TA, who is currently in stable condition at Fairview University Medical Center.
The TA, whose name is being withheld by authorities because of the extremely large footprint on his ass, is in his first year of teaching in the United States.
The incident began when the TA began to scrawl the word “denominator” across the blackboard.
Still becoming acclimated to the chalk consistencies and cursive properties of the United States, the TA made it through the “dem.” After a short pause, and what one witness described as a “somewhat bewildered ponder” the TA chose the simple second grade cursive cop-out — a messy scribble.
“It’s really quite a common technique we teach,” explained Tammy L. Dickey, head of the math department. “Usually our assistants know little to no English, so we just tell them to look like they are writing really sloppy cursive — kind of like Billy Madison in that one funny movie he is in, oh what’s the name, something like ‘Happy Thompson’ or something. I liked it when he tried to write Phil Rizzuto and he didn’t know how to make the cursive ‘z.’ That happened to me once in grade school and I soiled myself right in front of the class. Until high school the class called me ‘The Soiler.’ Those funny guys.”
Enraged by what he called “a blatant disregard for our mother cursive,” Arnold didn’t let the incident slide.
According to Jim Hammersmith, a male sexuality student, Arnold began chewing on his pen cap and sweating.
Arnold then asked the TA, “What was the denominator?”
“Serty-sree and a serd,” the TA beckoned at his inquisitive students.
“Huh?” a student said.
“Serty-sree and a serd,” the TA repeated, with more emphasis on the last word in this jumbled mess.
“Yeah, but …”
“Serty-sree and won serd!” the TA now bellowed.
The tone in the TA’s voice further incited a riot within Arnold’s mind, he said.
“He was all ‘serty-sree and a serd’ in that condescending tone. Then I’m all ‘screw this’ and ‘let’s do something,'” Arnold gently enunciated.
From that point on, accounts vary.
Hammersmith claims he actually heard something “snap” within Arnold’s person. He claims Arnold then proceeded to “squawk like an injured parrot” and attack the TA.
After a flurry of fists blurred his vision for a short while, Hammersmith said he could no longer see the meter stick that had been held in the TA’s hands. He also said the assistant was “walking funny.”
Other witnesses said Arnold actually tore the TA’s arm off and, in turn, beat him with it.
“He was tattered and torn,” Dickey said. “And bruised all about the head, neck, chest and breasts.”
Classmates described Arnold as “provocative” and “surly.”
The meter stick, which is allegedly property of the math department, is survived by three toothpicks and one gigantic log.