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Lecture series
gets under way k
Inside | 5A
Coach
won’t be
charged
School investigation
begins into incident
By Jennifer Sami
jsami@forsythnews com
Forsyth County Sheriff’s investigators say
they won’t be filing criminal charges against
the high school varsity hoys basketball coach
accused of striking a student in the classroom.
“The bottom line is we were unable to
determine that a criminal act occurred,” said
Sheriff’s Lt. Matt Allen, who was part of the
probe that concluded late Thursday.
The investigation, which Allen described as
thorough, involved “quite a few” potential
witnesses to the alleged incident earlier this
month between head coach Dennis Benedict
and a male student at West.
"Our role was to determine whether or not a
criminal act occurred and we've done that,"
Allen said. "So the school still has their inves¬
tigation to conduct.”
As a result of a complaint, which the stu¬
dent’s parents filed Jan. 20, the Forsyth
County school system has temporarily reas¬
signed Benedict, who teaches biology in addi¬
tion to coaching.
Spokeswoman Jennifer Caracciolo said the
system’s human resources department has
standard procedures it must follow in a case
like this.
"Now that the investigation is complete
from the sheriff’s office, we’ll review the
findings and begin our own internal investiga¬
tion,” she said, “it’s unclear right now as to
how long it will take.”
In the meantime, Benedict’s status is
unlikely to change. Caracciolo said he will
not be coaching or teaching while the school
system looks into the matter.
A sheriff ’s report of the incident shows the
15-year-old student told his parents that on
Jan. 19 Benedict had come “over to him in
class during study time and punched him in
the head three times.”
In the complaint, which was filed the next
day, the boy’s father said no injuries had
occurred, but he wanted “the incident to be
documented and investigated.”
Both the student’s father and Benedict have
declined to comment on the situation, citing
the ongoing investigation.
The sheriff’s report also indicates the Jan
19 incident may not have been the first time
the coach had made physical contact with the
student.
The report states the teen, who is a member
of West’s freshman hoys basketball team, also
See COACH14A
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Autumn V«n*r Forsyth County News
As part of the Healthcare Exploring Program, Lambert
High students Jordan McKissock, left, and Kelsey
Duttenhofer practice balancing techniques used by physi
cal therapists Thursday at Northside Hospital-Forsyth.
o 7
District 5 commission race deyelops | 3 ‘
RELIGION
Center settling in
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Photos by Autumn Vetter Forsyth County News
Tareef Saeb, chairman, holds a computer rendering Thursday of what the Hamzah Islamic Center
in south Forsyth will eventually look like.The center moved to its new home site in June.
Outreach efforts
help ease issues
with
By Alyssa LaRenzie
alarenzie@forsythnews.com
It’s been six months since the
Hamzah Islamic Center began
holding prayers and classes in a
temporary building on the 12-acre
site of its future permanent home
in south Forsyth.
The prayers are peaceful and the
neighborhood equally quiet on a
weekday afternoon.
The memories of opposition
over the center's site plan applica¬
tion have faded as the Hamzah
organizers settle into the Tidwell
Road location.
Follovying an afternoon daily
prayer. Chairman Tareef Saeb
reflected on the issues the Islamic
Inside
Volume 103, Number 17
© 2012 Forsyth County New
Cumming, Georgia
Hands-on look at health care
Northside program
encourages students
By Crystal Ledford
cledford@forsythnews.com
Dressed in matching blue
scrub tops, several teenagers
donned goggles and tried bal¬
ancing on wobbly rubber disks.
They giggled and talked excit¬
edly as a physical therapist
advised them.
In another comer of the room,
a few others sampled thickened
apple juice used by speech lan
guage pathologists to help
Abby 4C
Classifieds 5B
Deaths 2A
Forsyth Life 1C
Opinion 6A
Sports 1B
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New thrift store aids ministry 11C
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Saeb gives a tour of the Hamzah Islamic Center property in
Tidwell Road.
center encountered in fall 2009.
when commissioners granted
sketch plat approval despite neigh
bors’ concerns about the religious
facility.
“We definitely had initially the
patients who are having trouble
swallowing.
"It’s like drinking apple juice
through a straw,” commented
Beni Kozen, a senior at Lambert
High School.
The teens are all part of a pro¬
gram at Northside Hospital that
teaches them about various
medical careers.
Called the Healthcare
Exploring Program, it meets one
night a month for six months.
Kelli Buchwald, Northside’s
community relations manager,
said this is the second year for
the program, which is offered in
conjunction with Boy Scouts of
America, although it is open to
k fyA ' Republican focus shifts
to Florida.
opposition, and it could kind of be
divided into two categories," Saeb
said. “A lot of the opposition was
based on traffic, and some of it
See CENTER 14A
both boys and girls.
“Last year, we had about 40
kids and we figured out that was
too many for the hands-on offer¬
ings, and we wanted to focus on
the hands-on courses," she said.
“So this year we have 24 stu
dents and that seems to be the
right number.”
The students, many of whom
attend Forsyth County high
schools, rotate to various
Northside facilities in Atlanta,
Alpharetta and Cumming.
Thursday night they were at
Northside-Forsyth, learning
about genetics and physical,
See PROGRAM 14A
J R Sports: High school
basketball
coverage.
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