A Toronto area school said it is investigating after a teacher at an elementary school allegedly showed students a video of U.S. conservative influencer Charlie Kirk’s assassination at a Utah university.
Kirk was shot in the neck on Sept. 10 during an event at the Utah Valley University campus.
A letter from Corvette Junior Public School in Scarborough said the video was shown once in a French immersion Grade 5 and 6 classroom by a “supervising staff member” and not the homeroom teacher on Sept. 11.
The Sept. 12 letter was signed by the school principal, Jennifer Koptie.
The teacher has since been relieved of “all teaching duties” and will not be at the school, Koptie wrote.
Koptie said the “violent video” was shown once in “response to questions being asked about a recent tragic event in the United States.”
She said this was “extremely troubling and completely unacceptable.”
“We recognize the seriousness of this matter and have taken immediate steps to follow all appropriate policies and procedures,” Koptie said in the letter.
She said that social work supports had been made available at the school on Sept. 12, adding that she would be visiting the classroom with a member of the social work team to “check in with students and provide support.”
The incident comes after the University of Toronto said it placed a political science and religion professor on leave for comments made on social media about Kirk’s death.
U of T professor Ruth Marshall said, “Shooting is honestly too good for so many of you fascist [expletive]” in a Sept. 10 post on X. The account can no longer be viewed publicly.
The university said it placed Marshall on leave after it learned of the post. A U of T spokesperson called the post “concerning” in a statement provided to The Epoch Times.
The university said that the matter was being looked into and it would not provide further comments.
Families Minister Nahanni Fontaine reposted a comment calling Kirk a “racist, xenophobic, transphobic, islamophobic, sexist, white nationalist mouthpiece who made millions of dollars inciting hatred in this country.” The post also accused Kirk of denying genocide and pushing for mass deportations, and said he stood for nothing but hate.
Fontaine apologized on the platform a day later, saying that “violence has no place in our democracy.”
She added that “we should strive to show empathy to everyone even those we don’t agree with.”
