JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – A Westside High School student was hospitalized this week after she was jumped by several other teens and a video of the beating went viral.
The graphic video shows 15-year-old Samaria Miller being punched and stomped on the ground by other female students.
News4Jax was told by several students that the incident took place after Wednesday’s planned protest for #NationalWalkoutDay, but Duval County Public Schools officials could not confirm that.
Miller’s mother said her daughter was already paralyzed on her left side after a car accident and now she has to wear a neck brace because her neck suffered significant bruising in the beating.
“It infuriated me. I was livid -- livid!” Miller’s mother, Meekcho Crockett, said.
Crockett told Westside High administrators Thursday that Miller won’t be returning to the school after she recovers from her injuries because she fears for her safety.
“I want to press charges to the fullest extent of the law,” Crockett said. “Those little girls will not enjoy their spring break, and my daughter's not going to enjoy her spring break, and I don't think that's fair.”
She told News4Jax she had already tried telling administrators at the school that her daughter was concerned because the same girls in the video had threatened her. Crockett said the animosity between Miller and the other girls has been brewing for months, allegedly over a stolen cellphone.
A Duval County Public Schools spokeswoman said school leaders were not aware of Crockett contacting them to share her concerns, but the district was aware of previous incidents between the students involved.
"Appropriate intervention and discipline were issued accordingly," DCPS spokeswoman Laureen Ricks said.
The profanity-laced video of Wednesday's beating is too disturbing to share in its entirety, but Miller can be seen being jumped by at least three other students in the locker room.
“She was having gym,” Crockett explained. “She was in the locker room getting dressed, and they assaulted her while she was in the locker room.”
Many rumors about what led to the incident swirled around campus Thursday, but most people agreed it shouldn't have happened at all.
“Even if she does recover physically, emotionally she's got to deal with that forever,” said one student, who asked not to be named. “At the end of the day, everybody is going to do what they want. Either they're going to listen or they're not going to listen. They'll do right or wrong, so it doesn't really matter what I say, because at this point, it's too far.”
That same student said the incident wasn’t all that surprising.
“Stuff like this happens every day,” he said. “It’s just not always caught on tape.”
Department of Education records show there were 54 fights reported at Westside High in the 2015-16 school year.
Ricks released a statement about Wednesday’s altercation, saying the district is “greatly disturbed by this incident.”
Violence on our campuses is simply unacceptable, and any student who engages in it will be disciplined according to the Code of Conduct. Students may also face possible arrest and criminal charges depending on the incident. As we work to create positive learning environments in all of our campuses, we ask parents to partner with us in talking to their children about this behavior, and discussing as well as modeling positive conflict resolution strategies at home.
While we are prohibited by law from discussing this specific incident, there are several different consequences for different levels of physical altercations. These include mutual fighting, initiating a fight, responding to a physical attack, and aggravated battery. As indicated on page 15 of the Secondary Code of Conduct, self-defense is described as an action to block an attack by another person or to shield yourself from being hit by another person. There is no disciplinary consequence for self-defense.