Mother pleads guilty to punching Milwaukee teacher

A Milwaukee parent pleaded guilty Thursday to charges she beat up a Milwaukee Public Schools teacher in front of more than a dozen students.

Tangreanna Shanks-Wallace, 25, of Milwaukee, was charged in Nov. 9, 2022 of battery to a school district officer, a Class-I felony. 

Prosecutors agreed to drop a misdemeanor count of bail jumping against Shanks-Wallace, but the charge will be read into the record for sentencing purposes, online court records show.

Sentencing is scheduled for May 9 before Milwaukee County Circuit Court Judge Kori Ashley.

How did things unfold?

According to a criminal complaint, police were called to the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. School on a complaint that a parent who was talking to the principal and a teacher began shouting and yelling expletives at the teacher outside the school.

Roughly 15-20 students were present at the time of the incident.

According to the complaint, the parent, later identified as Shanks-Wallace, was with a man, an older woman and a student at the time. A staff member told police she heard the man had a firearm, but she didn’t see one.

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The complaint said Shanks-Wallace punched a teacher in the head when the staff member called police to report “people were attacking the staff.” The teacher fell to the ground and was punched 15-20 times in the head, and later was treated for a concussion.

Shanks-Wallace was charged after she was identified from a photo array as the attacker, according to the complaint.