A 77-year-old volunteer teacher was arrested after reportedly striking a young student in a dispute over Pokémon cards.
A statement posted to the Dothan Police Department website by Chief William E. Benny describes the shocking incident, which took place on August 31, 2026.
That day, Dothan Police school resource officers responded to reports of an altercation between a student under the age of 10 and a volunteer teacher at the Jerry Lee Faine Elementary School in Dothan, Alabama.
The teacher, 77-year-old Oscar Truitt Jr., reportedly got into a feud with the student over Pokémon cards. Video footage taken from surveillance cameras on site showed Truitt “striking the child several times.” The volunteer teacher was charged with Harassment and booked into the Dothan City Jail after the incident.
“The safety of students is the top priority of the Dothan Police Department’s role in Dothan City Schools,” the statement reads.
At the time of writing, no other information about the altercation has been publicly revealed, leaving it unclear which Pokémon cards were involved in the dispute and whether or not the student is physically okay.
This is far from the first time someone’s been charged with a crime over Pokémon cards; we’ve covered a slew of similar stories over the last few years, with the most recent centering on a collector who organized his own ‘sting’ operation to catch thieves who gave him phony currency and ran off with three PSA Grade 10 cards worth $4,000 during a transaction gone wrong.
And in May, a Florida man was arrested and charged with burglary and theft of goods totalling more than $10,000 after reportedly breaking into a card shop using a chainsaw in West Palm Beach.
The fever around Pokémon cards has gotten so intense that Pokémon stores across Japan are taking measures to prevent scalping, with some implementing facial recognition software to discourage theft, while others are asking customers to pass a quiz in order to save card packs for real fans.
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Virginia (she/her) is IGN’s News Editor. With ten years of experience reporting on games and entertainment, she’s got a storied background in the fighting game community, influencer news, and viral online trends. Find her on Twitter at @TheeMissGlaze.