Texas police are investing a disturbing case of racially-charged bullying aimed at a Black middle schooler whose white classmates forced him to drink urine.
Summer Smith said her son, 13-year-old SeMarion Humphrey, has been repeatedly bullied by his peers at Haggard Middle School in Plano, a suburb of Dallas. She detailed the abuse in a Facebook post on Wednesday.
“Imagine being a happy kid who loves making people smile and having a good time… Imagine your classmates and football team members turning on you and targeting you,” Smith wrote under the account name Summer Alicia.
“Imagine a group of those same football team members attacking you in the locker-room with a belt… Imagine being hit in the private area and when you tell an adult you are told ‘boys will be boys,'” she continued.
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Smith said her son has had his inhaler taken from him by his coach, told he should commit suicide, and classmates have shot at him with BB guns, per NBC News.
Smith posted screenshots showing the threats and racial slurs hurled at her son, as well as a video of him surrounded by a group of white boys who are forcing him to drink a cup filled with what appears to be urine.
“Imagine being forced to drink the urine of not only a boy who thought was your friend, but his friends…Imagine the video of you drinking the urine being sent to multiple people in your school…Imagine the school telling you they can’t do a thing about it because ‘the incidents didn’t all take place on campus,'” the Facebook post reads. “My son doesn’t have to imagine these things, they are all his reality.”
Smith said school officials failed to take action to address the bullying after it was reported. So now, the Plano police are involved and a juvenile crimes detective is reportedly working with the school’s resource officer to investigate the bullying claims.
“There has to be more done for these kids to feel represented, for these kids to feel protected and for these parents to feel protected, and that’s not happening,” Taler Jefferson, a family friend, told Local NBC affiliate station KXAS-TV.
It’s worth noting that Plano is the same city where a Black teen was recently arrested for simply walking home in the snow.
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The Plano Independent School District said in a statement that it was “working with the campus and local law enforcement to actively investigate the matter.”
“Our district does not tolerate or condone bullying or harassing behavior, and is taking prompt and remedial action to address concerns,” the statement added.
“While we cannot discuss intervention or disciplinary measures as it relates to a specific student or students, our response to any behavioral concern is always in accordance with district policy and the Plano ISD Student Code of Conduct,” the district continued.
A GoFundMe page was created by the family’s attorney to cover therapy and private schooling expenses for SeMarion.
“SeMarion was bullied at school for over a year. So much so that he had to quit playing football, which he loved,” attorney Kim Cole wrote in a Facebook post on Friday. She also noted that the incident was “a racially motivated hate crime.”
A change.org petition calling on the school district to punish the bullies has received more than 103,000 signatures.
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