A faculty member said today she witnessed the incident in which a man, who’s accused of stabbing his mother to death in Gardena last month, allegedly assaulted another student on campus in 2012.

Nicholas Kim, a student at the time of the incident, broke another student’s headphones before Kim slammed him into a wall in a Humanities Building Hallway three years ago, according to a police report.

“It’s the same incident,” Mary Ann Leiby, an English professor, said after reading copies of police reports regarding the incident that “The Union” received through a public records request.

“(Redacted) only remembers standing up at some point and being thrown to the ground by Kim,” according to Officer Gary Robertson’s police report. “Kim then grabbed (redacted) where the two of them struggled for several seconds and then Kim threw (redacted) to the ground.”

Detective Michael DeSanto spoke with Kim after the incident in March 2012, who told Kim he was offended by the tone of voice used by another student who said, “Hello, sir” to him, according to the police report. Kim responded by telling “(redacted) to shut the (expletive) up.”

Leiby said in an email that she was teaching in a nearby classroom when the alleged assault occurred.

Kim wasn’t a student of hers but another faculty member’s, but she saw and heard the incident happen, Leiby said. She called the El Camino Police Department during class from inside her locked classroom.

“The police dispatcher said she would not send them (officers) until she spoke with the victim and demanded that I actually leave the safety of the locked classroom and hand my cell phone over to the victim, in front of Kim,” Leiby said. “She (the dispatcher) kept saying, ‘I need to talk to the victim.'”

Leiby said she was “furious” that her and her students’ safety was put at risk for her in order to go into the hallway.

“I did not know if Kim had a weapon. I did not know if Kim would attack me too,” she said. “I said several times to the dispatcher, ‘But the perpetrator is still there! He is yelling and threatening!’ But she just kept refusing to send officers.”

Leiby said she felt she risked her life to give her cellphone to the victim.

“I did it because it was the only way I could get the dispatcher to send police and get help for the victim and finally send officers to protect us all, because I did not know what other act of violence Kim might commit or if the victim was seriously injured or not,” she said.