A Songkhla principal accused of sleeping with a freshman student brandished a handgun at a school assembly today, sending students scrambling.
Hundreds of students ran from the morning flag-raising assembly after Principal Sayan Chaleephol, freshly accused of having sex with a minor, pulled the gun out of his pants while addressing the student body in an incident caught on video. Just before he took out the weapon, Sayan, who had been discussing Thepha School’s mundane budget matters, began apologizing and asking for forgiveness from the students.
“I told them yesterday that I would make this matter be heard even more than what they did,” he said, though his meaning was unclear even to those present. There is silence after he puts the microphone down, after which a student is heard shouting “no, no, no!” as people begin to flee.
Students told reporters and the police that was the moment when Sayan, after turning his back to the crowd, faced them again with a gun in his waistband he then pulled out.
