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Special Education Student Records Principal During Alleged Expletive & Threat-Filled Tirade

PITTSBURGH (KDKA) -- The attorney representing a teenager and his mother wants the principal at Woodland Hills High School fired or at least reprimanded after a recording surfaced of him allegedly berating the boy.

The 14-year-old student says the principal often harasses him and allegedly speaks to him in a threatening manner, using expletives and on one occasion, the teen recorded it.

The recording was made back in April while the boy was being reprimanded for a previous incident.

During the incident, the principal is allegedly caught on the recording saying, "I'll punch you right in your face, dude."

According to the family's attorney, Todd Hollis, there were several other incidents involving the boy and principal, Kevin Murray. Reportedly, no one believed the teen, and his mother had gone to several police departments for help.

"The child felt he had to tape it in order to get credibility," said Hollis. "No one believed that the principal would or could do such a thing."

KDKA's Brenda Waters took the recording to Woodland Hills Superintendent Alan Johnson.

"Obviously, what I heard there is not something that we would condone as a school district," said Johnson of the recording.

Hollis says the threats and harassment have gone on throughout the school year against the "special education" student.

"Maybe the principal should be terminated," said Hollis. "Monetary isn't the primary goal, but certainly the family wants to be commenced for the threats this principal made to this child."

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"Our initial steps are going to be to speak to the alleged victims, speak to the school staff that were involved, go over this recording with them and ask for their explanation, if you will, of what happened. Then, we'll render some kind of a judgement and take some action from there," said Johnson.

Hollis says his initial move will be to reach out to the superintendent, but if need be, he will go to court.

In the state of Pennsylvania, the wiretap law prohibits anyone from recording another person without their knowledge.

However, Hollis says, "We are going to explore the legalities behind that, and we don't believe that that exists in this case because the expectation of privacy, we don't believe that there was one."

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