Teacher Acquitted of 3 Charges of Beating Boy

A teacher at an Arleta elementary school was acquitted Thursday of three charges that he beat a 9-year-old student.

A fourth charge against James C. Rozelle, 34, was dismissed after jurors in San Fernando Municipal Court said they were deadlocked 10 to 2 for acquittal.

Rozelle, a teacher at Beachy Avenue Elementary School, was charged in March, 1989, with four misdemeanors--child abuse, battery, inflicting corporal punishment, and assault with a deadly weapon--for allegedly beating fourth-grader Michael Ortiz with a pointer stick in front of the youngster’s classmates.

At the trial, the boy and one other student said the child was beaten 20 times on his buttocks for not doing his homework. Rozelle and another student testified that he had gently tapped the boy on the leg.

Medical witnesses for the defense and prosecution disagreed over whether the bruises and welts on the boy’s buttocks could have been caused by a beating with a stick.

“The jury obviously did not believe the prosecution witnesses,” said Alex R. Kessel, Rozelle’s attorney. He noted that the jury deadlocked on the charge of battery, which stemmed from Rozelle’s acknowledged tapping of the student with a stick.

Rozelle was charged after the boy’s relatives took him to the family doctor, who reported abuse to police. Kessel repeatedly suggested during the trial that someone in the Ortiz family had whipped the boy.

Rozelle has been working for the Los Angeles Unified School District in a non-teaching position pending the outcome of the trial.