Diana Z. O’Neill, a special education teacher at Venice Middle School, was arrested Thursday for abuse of mentally handicapped students in her classroom, the Venice Police Department reports.

O’Neill, who has been under investigation since January, turned herself in Thursday, the police deparment said. She was charged with four counts of aggravated child abuse/willfully torture, maliciously punishing students, the agency said.

Last month, the Venice’s detectives got information from the Department Children and Families regarding of abuse allegations from O’Neill, who teaches special education in the Profoundly Mentally Handicapped Program at Venice Elementary School. There are five students in the class, police said.

It alleged O'Neill was seen hitting a student in the head with a catalog, backhanding a student, allowing a student to bang her head on multiple surfaces, kicking a little girl, and twisting a child's arm behind his back.

As this investigation progressed, two teacher's aides for O'Neill, corroborated the allegations.

In interviews, both aides reported they saw O'Neill lash out at the children and maliciously punish them by hitting, kicking and improperly restraining them. The witnesses reported that they had seen numerous acts of violence toward the children during the school year and they felt the incidents were increasingly dangerous to the health of the children.

The four victims in the case are all younger than 11 years old.