A New York teacher has been arrested for allegedly giving a 17-year-old boy a dose of the COVID vaccine without his parents’ consent.
To make matters even worse, video of the incident appears to show her giving him the vaccine at home while he sits at a kitchen table.
Laura Parker Russo, a 54-year-old science teacher at Herricks High School in Long Island, can be seen in the video laughing as she jab the boy with what reportedly was a dose of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine, which hasn’t been approved for people under the age of 18.
“There you go: at-home vaccine,” says the person shooting the video on a cell phone as Russo swabs the teen's arm.
“There you go, at home vaccine”. Police have arrested a Long Island mother for illegally giving a 17 year old boy a shot of Covid vaccine in her home. And there’s video….Only on @NBCNewYork #nbc4ny pic.twitter.com/KpG5vAQaDT
— Pei-Sze Cheng (@PeiSzeCheng4NY) January 3, 2022
The kid, who hasn’t been publicly identified due to his age, went home and told his mother, who called the police.
According to NBC News, the boy supposedly asked Russo for the shot while he was at her home, saying he wanted to be vaccinated but that his mother didn’t want him to get the jab. Not only did Russo give him The Jab, but authorities with the Nassau County Police Department confirmed she isn’t a medical professional and was not legally authorized to be giving out any COVID vaccines, much less to a person sitting at her kitchen table. It’s not immediately clear how she came by one of the shots.
Russo has since been arrested and charged with unauthorized practice of a profession, and is scheduled to appear in court on January 21.