No criminal charge against school guard who struck girl during basketball game

A Broward school security specialist caught on video knocking a teenage girl to the ground during a melee at a basketball game will not face criminal charges because he acted in defense of his daughter, according to prosecutors.

Bennett Wyche, 43, was arrested Sept. 18 after cellphone video showed part of the altercation. Wyche was the one who called Hollywood police to let them know he was the man in the video.

The incident took place at the Washington Park Community

Center during a travel basketball game in which one of Wyche’s daughters was a player. Members of the two teams had gotten into a fight, according to a police report, and the victim, a 17-year-old player on the opposing team, was seen on a cellphone video getting knocked to the floor by Wyche.

“The video doesn’t show the full story,” said Wyche’s attorney,

Johnny McCray. “We presented a number of witnesses, parents and students who were at the game, and we presented all the evidence that we had. When the State Attorney’s Office got the full story, they made the only decision they could.”

In a closeout memo explaining the decision not to pursue the criminal charge, Assistant State Attorney Sarahnell Murphy cited the language of the state’s Stand Your Ground law. “Mr. Wyche is legally permitted to defend his daughter,”

she wrote. “A defendant is justified in using nondeadly force against a person, and has no duty to retreat, if he reasonably believes that such force is necessary to defend another [person].”

The girl Wyche knocked to the ground told investigators that she was punching Wyche’s daughter when he intervened.

Wyche has been a school district employee for 21 years, McCray said, and has been employee of the year five times — three times at Lauderdale Lakes Middle School and once each at North Fork Elementary in Fort Lauderdale and once at Stranahan High School in Fort Lauderdale.

After police arrested him on the battery allegation in September, Wyche continued to work for the school district at an office in Pompano Beach where he would not have any contact with children, McCray said.

The pending allegation still affected him because Wyche was unable to earn overtime pay at afterschool and weekend activities that involve children, McCray said.

Wyche’s job status is still pending at the school district.