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7th grader tased at Westport Middle School

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Jefferson County Public Schools say police used a taser on a 7th grader Monday. A district spokeswoman says a student was out of control in the cafeteria.

She won't say what lead to Monday's outburst, but tells Fox 41 News that teachers and school officials tried to calm him down. Then the student assaulted the officer, who tased him.

"He was trying to control the student and he had to use his instincts," said Dr. Staci Eddleman, principal of the school.

Paramedics checked out the boy and he's fine, but he's facing a long-term suspension on charges of assaulting a police officer.

Dr. Eddleman says the school does not take the boy's alleged actions lightly.

"It's quite serious," she said. "I just want to emphasize that this was an unfortunate incident -- an isolated incident. We have a lot of great things going on here at this school this year and I want parents to know that their students are safe here and we took it very serious how this student was behaving. We wanted to keep him safe and keep all of the other students safe as well."

Tuesday morning, the district was not commenting on the incident, referring all questions to Eddleman and the Louisville Metro Police.

We can tell you 19 student resource officers are assigned to schools throughout the district. Half are sheriff's deputies and half are police officers.

The district says tasing a student is very rare and only done when a student is so out of control. They believe only four or five students have been tased in the last five to ten years, and this is the first incident so far this school year.

Fox 41 Facebook commenters had mixed feelings about the incident:

Marie: "We are talking about a child! JCPS is totally out of control. They can't control the busses. They can't control the 7th graders. He or she might have been physically out of control, but the child had NO weapon. The police officer should be fired...this is child abuse."

Eddie: Oh, okay everyone. It's okay for the person to assault a police officer, but the officer can't defend themself? I think I would have done the same thing if I was the cop."