Texas police are investigating allegations of repeated bullying against a black high school student whose mother says he was physically assaulted, called racial peers and forced by classmates to drink urine.
The boy’s mother, Summer Smith, who joins Summer Alicia on Facebook, set out in a post earlier this week that her son, SeMarion, had faced numerous cases of being bullied by friends.
Smith said officials at her son’s school, Haggard Middle School in Plano, a suburb of Dallas, did not act to address the bullying after it was reported.
“Imagine that you are a happy child who likes to make people smile and have a good time … Imagine your classmates and members of the football team turning on you and targeting you,” she wrote. “Imagine a group of members of the same soccer team attacking you in the locker room with a belt … Imagine that you are hit in the private area and when you say to an adult, you are told ‘boys will be boys’. “
The mother also wrote that her son had his inhaler taken from him by his trainer, said he had to commit suicide, was attacked by classmates with BB guns and forced to drink a cup of urine.
Smith then recorded a recording in the message in which oral threats and racial remarks were apparently shown on SeMarion, as well as a video showing someone looking like she was forcing her son into a cup filled with yellow liquid by another son to drink.
David Tilley, police spokesman, said The Dallas Morning News that the mother of a student this week called the middle school’s resource officer, and the officer is working closely with a juvenile delinquency detective to investigate the bullying claims.
Local NBC affiliate station KXAS-TV reported that a small group of family friends of SeMarion and parents of other students held a rally outside the middle school on Thursday and demanded that the local school district take action.
“More needs to be done to make these children feel, they need to feel protected and that they feel protected, and that’s not happening,” Taler Jefferson, a family friend, told the local news agency.
The Plano Independent School District said in a public statement about the bullying allegations that it was “working with campus and local law enforcement to actively investigate the case.”
“Our district does not distort or condone bullying or harassing behavior, and takes swift and corrective action to address problems,” the statement said.
The district further stated: ‘Although we cannot discuss interventions or disciplinary measures as they relate to a specific student or students, our response to any behavioral problem is always in accordance with the district policy and the Plano ISD code of conduct for students . ‘
The family’s lawyer, Kim Cole, has a GoFundMe page to cover therapy and private tuition expenses for SeMarion, as described on the page. The fundraiser had already received more than $ 30,000 by Saturday, a day after the page was launched.
A change.org petition An appeal to the school district to punish the students who were allegedly involved in the bullying was also launched this week and received more than 103,000 signatures.