Missouri Teen Severely Beaten by Classmate; Story Reported Under "Politics"

HERE is a story from KSDK about a high-school student, Kaylee Gain, who was beaten into a coma by a classmate about half a mile from the school.

Note that the story "Kaylee Gain identified as student suspended for fight inside school hallway the day before she was severely injured" is under the "Politics" tab.  This is why America is screwed.

Because once again, the violence against this person is irrelevant other than the larger, toxic narratives swirling around it.  She and the girl who attacked her are merely pawns in a game that has always been designed to grind human life into money.

This is the same issue I have always faced, and why I cut money out of my pension to maintain a blog that nobody reads.  Because the people in high places, who have booming voices, constantly use them to maintain low-quality conversations that drown out anything I might find important to discuss.

Why is this article under "politics" instead of "crime" or "schools"?  Politics should have nothing to do with it.  The question should be how we can de-escalate our kids."

"After the alarming video gained national media attention, Attorney General Andrew Bailey attempted to inject divisive racial politics into the story. He announced he was launching an "investigation" into the school district in an attempt to somehow link the altercation to the administration's DEI 'Statement of Solidarity' from four years ago. [emphasis added]"

Because that's what this Republican Attorney General wants that school district spending its time/money on, defending themselves legally against his investigation.  Not books, not conflict de-escalation programs for the kids, his bullshit.  Duly noted.

"In Bailey's initial letter, he inaccurately assumed school hallways were no longer being patrolled by guards, and he attempted to pin the absence of School Resource Officers on the district's Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion programs. Local police and the school district later refuted both claims.

Bailey used the tragedy to score quick a TV hit on Fox News where he accused school district administrators of "promoting this culture of violence."

"They attend a school that has a history of promoting DEI programs that promote racial divisiveness at the expense of having uniformed police in their schools," Bailey incorrectly told cable show host Laura Ingraham.

She amplified the racially charged rhetoric by telling her audience the video showing a Black girl attack a white girl was an example of "rage spilling out across America, especially in inner cities."

Sen. Josh Hawley quickly heralded Bailey's maneuver and shared a link to the Fox News story, which promoted it as an "exclusive." However, the entire premise was based on false information. 

Cindy Ormsby, an attorney representing the Hazelwood School District, dissected Bailey's false claims one-by-one in a strongly worded letter. She scolded Bailey's "incomplete" investigation, saying it's "dangerous and will likely be an embarrassment to you and your office when and if the facts become known to you and the general public."

But it won't be an embarrassment.  Because he and his contingent DGAF about anything but the little games they play.  The violence among the kids was never a problem for them.  There's no way to have the original conversation that I'm interested in, about conflict de-escalation in the first place.  Because their whole agenda was about ratcheting up the conflict in the specific way they want it escalated.  They're deliberately turning away from the original conversation.

Continuing from the above-linked article:

"Attorneys who file false accusations or submit phony evidence can face a variety of consequences from the courts or the Bar Association, including a motion for sanctions or financial penalties. 

"The district is looking at all with all of its options here. It's not backing down," Ormsby said. "We're looking at whether or not we'll file an ethics complaint.""

We may never get down to what actually happened between the two girls.  Because it happened off of school grounds, which is why there was no school resource officer to break it up.  It had nothing to do with any DEI policy.  That was just red meat for Laura Ingraham and her scumbags.

***

Now, if I may discuss the actual crime at hand, if the politicians are quite done.

Eight teens have been referred to family court and are facing assault charges in this incident.  So it was ugly. 

I'm not watching the video for the same reason I didn't watch the video of George Floyd being murdered.  As a survivor, I don't believe in re-violating people by watching videos of their assaults unnecessarily.  If I were on a jury, if there were some need-to-know, I would watch.  But I don't watch bodycams where someone gets seriously injured for the same reason.  I'm not a gawker.  I'm always looking for something teachable or what we can do better.

Yesterday I wrote about a terrible apology by a parent of an alleged perpetrator.  Here's another one.  The other lady was unprepared for her media debut.  But these folks already had a lawyer and the NAACP on board and should have had a better statement ready for God's sake.  They should already have had a clue about what not to say.

KSDK:

"Officials had not publicly identified DeClue before now, but her family issued an open letter on Thursday night "to address the misconceptions surrounding Maurnice's character," highlighting her honor roll status, proficiency in four languages, and that she played volleyball and violin in school orchestra."

Um... all that and then she almost beat another kid to death by smashing her head repeatedly on the sidewalk.  Even if the other brat provoked her the day before, nobody wants to hear your little maniac play the violin now. 

Or maybe that's just the state of America's racial divide, that people reflexively side with one child or the other based on race alone and the violence is truly irrelevant now.  This country may be at that level of failed humanity, entirely possible.  Maybe there are no people, it's all just a huge game of skins.

"In a Friday phone call, they tell 5 On Your Side their daughter was "dismayed to hear" Gain was in a coma for so long, and relieved to hear about her recent improvements because, "she wants to apologize.""

In this case "wants to apologize" is a euphemism for "doesn't want to be charged with murder." 

""I just feel for my daughter," DeClue's mother said. "She's not a troublemaker, she's not a bully.""

This is the exact sort of thing you should leave out of an apology in my personal opinion.  I've never met any of these people, and this made me want to lunge at this woman.  Ma'am, we know you support your horrible daughter.  That's a given.  That's probably why we're all in this situation now, your parenting.

""Maurnice was not the aggressor," she said. "

I believe there is a video that will contradict this position in court.  Seriously fuck off with that entire statement.  Why did their lawyer allow them to put this out? 

""This had manifested over a three-month period. My daughter was focused on her education, and I don't know... maybe they thought she was a nerd.""

Perhaps.  I got bullied in the home, which led to me getting bullied in school.  I got hit by other kids, called names, sent to school hungry and without adequate clothing.  I got teased about my body which developed faster than everybody else, and called a whore every day in 7th and 8th grade -- and I was a trafficking survivor, which my mother attacked me about daily.  My friend Wendy and I had to flee high school altogether in order to avoid being killed by a gang because of a simple misunderstanding.  All of that lasted much more than three months.  And yet we never beat anybody up, go figure.  Fuck this woman and her daughter too.

"According to DeClue, police investigators have compiled copies of Instagram messages that included menacing threats to Maurnice. 

"My daughter said she blacked out during the fight. I didn't know she was being bullied," Consuella DeClue said. "I would have pulled her out of school.""

Woulda, shoulda, coulda.  Your daughter beat another child into a coma, and you're on the news talking about what a talented little angel she is.  It's the parenting pandemic that will kill us all.

The fact that she claims to have blacked out is an aggravating, not mitigating, factor.  Someone who "blacks out" and attempts to murder someone is a very serious threat to society.

In my world, where I make the rules, we squeeze every disaster for all of the possible benefits  It's my variation of "they go low, and I go high."  I make as much lemonade as possible, basically.

In this situation, here's how it looks:

• We might use this situation to come up with more creative approaches to conflict de-escalation.  For example, some team approach where other kids might work as a group to talk things out, involving maybe the school counselor, when they see things boiling over between the two girls, before it ever comes to a fight.  Because if eight other kids are charged after things go off the rails, those same eight kids could have been enlisted to help them work things out earlier.  Right?
• We can learn how to do better apologies, how not to apologize, and what to say or not say in volatile situations.  We can learn how not to be manipulated by watching the way these things play out.
• We can see who the bad actors are, and by dissecting their narratives, understand their motives and predict their behaviors.
  
• Now that the Attorney General has initiated some nonsense, this may be a good time to revisit the DoJ's findings about Ferguson, or push forward on some of the other issues in Missouri as Attorney Ormsby is quoted about pursuing him with the Bar Association.  Let him FAFO.  He stepped in it.  Wedge that open now.
  
• We can better understand and identify what options and resources we do have available to us, that can't be taken away from us, like our creativity, integrity, and willingness to cooperate with people of good faith.
• Sometimes we learn by bad example, like the parents who refuse to see anything bad in their child no matter what.  Remember that responsibility is response-ability, the ability to respond.  It's the biggest blessing we have while alive.