State Rep. Mark Samsel was substitute teaching in a public high school when he followed a frightened student around the room, and kneed him in the genitals, all while preaching about God, sex, and homosexuality.
Kansas Rep Arrested For Kneeing Boy In Crotch While Teaching
Credit: Franklin County Adult Detention Center
May 1, 2021

It takes a lot to render me speechless, but I am floored by this atrocious abuse Kansas State Rep. Mark Samsel inflicted upon high school students to whom he was assigned as substitute teacher.

Here are some of the things he saw fit to terrorize them with, as a member of the "Religious Right."

  • He described "a sophomore who’s tried killing himself three times,” insisting it was because “he has two parents and they’re both females.”
  • He continued, because it's all about him and his feelings, "He’s a foster kid. His alternatives in life were having no parents or foster care parents who are gay. How do you think I’m going to feel if he commits suicide? Awful."
  • "[M]ake babies. Who likes making babies? That feels good, doesn’t it? Procreate. ... You haven’t masturbated? Don’t answer that question....God already knows."

Thank Samsel's Almighty God the students recorded him.

The student he assaulted was subjected to prolonged bullying. According to the Kansas City Star's reporting:

Videos shared with The Star — by parents of students in the class — show Samsel focusing most of his attention on one male student. Both Samsel and the student paced around the classroom, talking back and forth. Samsel is shown following the student around and grabbing him. In one video, he puts his arms around the student and says that he was being hard on him.

At one point, Samsel tells the student, “You’re about ready to anger me and get the wrath of God. Do you believe me when I tell you that God has been speaking to me?” He then pushes him, and the student runs to the other side of the classroom.

“You should run and scream.”

Another video shows Samsel telling other students they have "permission to kick him in the balls."

Parents told The Star that Samsel “put hands on the student” and allegedly kneed him in the crotch. In a video apparently taken immediately after the incident, the student is shown on the ground. Samsel is standing over him and says, “did it hurt?”

He then asks him why he is about to start crying, pats him on the shoulder and apologizes, and then says he can “go to the nurse, she can check it for you.”

Samsel addresses another student and says, “do you want to check his nuts for him, please?”

There's more.

He forced two students to go outside, hold hands, and run around the track as punishment. To the students inside, he said, "Do you think we want to do this? No, we had a lesson to do. Is it kind of funny? Yeah. Are they ever going to learn? God only knows.”

In another video, Samsel is shown telling the student about “distractions from the devil,” and then grabs him from behind and lifts him off his feet.

In a different clip, he tells the student to go to the office.

“You were not following — not my rules — God’s rules right now,” he tells the student. “You better take a Bible.”

“Keep denying God, keep denying God, see how it’s going to turn out,” he told the student.

Samsel's defense? It was all PLANNED.

"Every little bit of it. That’s right. The kids and I planned ALL this to SEND A MESSAGE about art, mental health, teenage suicide, how we treat our educators and one another. To who? Parents. And grandparents. And all of Wellsville," he said in a Snapchat post.

He asked, “I went to jail for battery. Does that really make me a criminal? Time will tell.”

I think we all know that it's not whether or not you go to jail that makes you a criminal. Too many criminals never go to jail, and too many people in jail weren't criminals to begin with.

All that video evidence, and Samsel's pathetic, delusional excuses for the unforgivable abuse he inflicted on those kids DOES make him a sadist and a lunatic.

Can you help us out?

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