Law enforcement in S.C. awaiting medical tests in death of RaNiya Wright, 10; reviewing video
Police are still trying to provide answers to a family that has few after their daughter died in a classroom fight
A sheriff’s office in South Carolina’s Lowcountry is waiting for the results of medical tests in the death of 10-year-old RaNiya Wright, who died after sustaining injuries in a classroom fight, and reviewing video, a law enforcement officer is telling the media.
An autopsy performed two weeks ago on the little girl found something that required further study, Maj. Jason Chapman with the Colleton County, S.C., Sheriff’s Office told the Greenville News, breaking law enforcement’s weeks of silence on the case that evolved last month.
READ MORE: ‘I notified the school’: Mom accuses officials of failing to protect daughter after deadly fight
RaNiya was hurt when a fight broke out in a classroom at the Forest Hills Elementary School in Walterboro, S.C., on March 25 and the case has set off a flurry of questions among the public, including how she was hurt. A school staffer contacted emergency responders, who tended to RaNiya at the school’s nurse’s station, where the girl had collapsed, according to the News. She died at the Medical University of South Carolina, in Charleston, two days later.
Ashley Wright, Raniya’s mother, told Good Morning America that she’d told school representatives that her daughter was being bullied and she said school officials failed her and her daughter.
Chapman said he hopes to share more details on the case within the next couple of weeks.
“There’s lots of rumors about lots of things and we’ve heard the rumors,” Chapman told the Greenville News. “We are not going to comment on those. We have heard that everyone has a right to know what happened. I am a parent and I have a child in that school. I understand that everybody has a want to know. If we put something out prematurely and it turns out to be incomplete, inconsistent or inaccurate, the results of that could be catastrophic.”
The additional study was performed on RaNiya’s brain, Mark Peper, a lawyer for the girl’s father, Jermaine Van Dyke, told the News. Peper said he wants to know why additional study was needed in the procedure that was performed at the Medical University of South Carolina.
“The autopsy was done at MUSC, not some random hospital,” Peper said. “The top dogs did the autopsy.”
School officials have declined to discuss what happened, citing the ongoing investigation.
