Student in Lady’s Island school bullying video charged with assault, making school threats
The Lady’s Island Middle School student who pushed a classmate to the ground in a viral video has been charged in family court, Beaufort Police Department spokesperson George Erdel confirmed Wednesday.
The student, who is not named in the police report because she is a minor, is facing one count of 3rd degree assault and battery and one charge of school threats.
In a video taken Feb. 9, the girl is shown grabbing another student’s hair and saying, “You don’t like it when people do that to you, right? You wouldn’t like it, right? So don’t do it again.”
She then pushes the other girl, who stumbles, and pushes her again to the ground with her head seemingly hitting a bench on the way down.
The video has been reposted on social media several times, garnering thousands of views and dozens of calls to Beaufort Police Department from across the country, Erdel said.
Sean Apgar, the uncle of the girl who was pushed, said Wednesday his family had not heard anything “other than what was in the news” from police or the school regarding the incident, and that they have been in touch with lawyers.
Conflicting statements made
According to a police report, both students are in the sixth grade and the altercation took place in the dance class girl’s locker room on Feb. 9 after class.
Both students were interviewed by police, along with a third classmate who said she was asked to record the fight in advance by the student who was charged.
In a statement to police, the student who was charged said that on the morning of Feb. 9, she told the girl she later pushed that she walked slow on the way to class. The other girl then repeatedly called her “slow” and told a teacher that she was being picked on by the first girl, police said.
The student who was charged also claimed the girl she pushed pulled her hair after dance class that day, which prompted the altercation seen in the video.
In a separate interview, the student who was pushed said the other student asked in dance class if they could speak after class ended and told her to follow her. That’s when she was pushed. She did not mention pulling the other student’s hair first. She told police that she was “fine” when asked whether she was hurt.
The third student who filmed the incident told police the student who was charged passed her a note the morning of Feb. 9 asking her to record a fight between her and the other girl later. She said she did not believe the student who was pushed knew that she was recording the video, and that “she didn’t get to record that much but did get some,” according to the police report.
The video was posted to Snapchat and later taken down. Both students in the video originally told school administrators that the incident was a “minor altercation.” The parents of the student who was pushed initially declined to press charges, but changed their minds after being shown the video by police, according to the report.