A teacher at a Catholic elementary school in East Chicago, Indiana, has been taken into custody following a disturbing admission.
Angelica Carrasquillo-Torres, a 25-year-old who teaches 5th grade at St. Stanislaus School, has risen to notoriety following allegations that she made troubling statements involving her “killing herself, students, and staff.”
On Wednesday, the East Chicago Police Department (ECPD) spoke on the situation in a social media statement, noting that a concerned student coming forward is how the case came to their attention.
“At approximately 12:45 p.m. a 5th grade student told his/her Counselor that their 5th grade teacher made comments to him/her about killing herself, students, and staff at St. Stanislaus School,” the ECPD said in a Facebook post on Thursday. “The teacher further told the student that she has a list and that he/she was on the bottom of that list.”
Authorities proceeded to note that Carrasquillo-Torres was swiftly called for a meeting with the school principal to discuss the allegation, and she “admitted to the principal that she did in fact make those statements to the student and confirmed that she did have a ‘kill list.'”
“During the conversation the teacher named a specific student on her list but did not provide the list. The principal then advised the teacher to leave and not return to school pending an investigation,” the ECPD’s statement reads.
Officers were informed about the situation a few hours later, and — on Thursday, Oct. 13 — they obtained an “emergency detention order” and took the teacher into custody at her home in Griffith, Indiana.
No other details about the case have been made publicly available at this time.
With the matter now under control, Portia Jones, one of Carrasquillo-Torres’s students, recalled the incident while speaking with CBS News.
“She said that she wanted to kill her middle school friends, her high school friends, and half of her family,” she shared. “Then she admitted that she had a kill list.”
The student’s father, Quiannis Jones, also spoke on the situation and expressed that school officials “should have called the police right then and there.”
“She said that these kids get on her nerves so much that she wanted to kill them. Like, what type of person says that?” Jones shared, CBS News reports. “She ain’t mental. She’s teacher. Come on now. You all did a background check — unless you all didn’t.”
We should also add that, while Carrasquillo-Torres was definitely taken into custody, it’s currently unclear if she’s being formally charged with a crime.