A mother in Pascagoula, Mississippi is demanding answers after her five-year-old daughter came home from kindergarten with grisly facial injuries. The school says that the little girl fell on the playground, but the mother doesn’t believe it.
On August 22, Lacey Harris got a call from Arlington Elementary School in Pascagoula telling her that her daughter, AvaLynn, had been badly injured in an accident and needed to go home early.? AvaLynn had severe bruising all over her face, including two black eyes. She also had what appeared to be the remains of a bloody nose; one of her nostrils had what looked to be clotted blood in it. According to The Mississippi Press, Pascagoula School District officials released a statement on Friday saying that AvaLynn fell from the playground slide and landed on her face. However, Harris says that AvaLynn told her another student kicked AvaLynn in the face several times until she fell.
I happened to see this story flash across my Facebook feed this past weekend when I was visiting my girlfriend for the weekend. She’s been a day care teacher for most of her adult life, so I wanted to get her read on this. I handed my phone to her, and within five seconds she said that there was no way this could have come from a fall on the playground. Having had a chance to look at this more closely, I have to agree. I could see someone getting a bloody nose after falling from a slide. But taken with the other injuries, unless I’m missing something I can only conclude that somebody beat the daylights out of AvaLynn.
Moreover, the manner in which she was beaten goes way beyond something that should be handled only at the level of the principal’s office. Whoever did this to AvaLynn needs a reality check and soon. The parents of the kid who did this to AvaLynn need a pretty stern lecture as well. Harris filed a police report on August 26, but police initially seemed to be slow-walking the investigation because–wait for it–they didn’t think anything criminal occurred. However, as of Tuesday, police now say that they are looking into leads as they develop.
For now, the school district is sticking to its claim that AvaLynn fell off the slide, and no other children were involved. According to one of the early posts on a Facebook page started by AvaLynn’s supporters, Justice for AvaLynn, school officials initially weren’t going to comment at all on the matter until Harris, her friends and relatives all but forced them to do so. Yeah, that’s a good way to inspire confidence in the school system. On Tuesday, the school district released a statement saying that four adults were present at the time of the accident, and the district’s insurance company is taking over the handling of the matter.
AvaLynn’s supporters are taking donations at GoFundMe to help pay for AvaLynn’s medical expenses. While it doesn’t look like she’s going to have lasting physical damage, mental damage is another matter. There have been quite a few scammers who have tried to take advantage of this.? One GoFundMe page that was originally set up on behalf of Michael Brown on August 20 had its details altered for AvaLynn after the story of her ordeal broke; it was deleted on Tuesday.
It’s likely that further details in this case will come out in bits and pieces. Police are understandably being careful with what they release since there are children involved. Harris has retained a lawyer and won’t be speaking directly with the media or uploading any new pictures any time soon per his advice. Hopefully, answers will come as soon as possible.
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Darrell Lucus, also known as Christian Dem in NC on Daily Kos, is a radical-lefty Jesus-lover who has been blogging for change for a decade. Follow him on Twitter @DarrellLucus or connect with him on Facebook.
