A years-long campaign of harassment left a Long Island cheerleader suicidal, and she was even mocked for the sudden death of a horse that was purchased for her emotional support, according to a $6 million lawsuit.
The accuser, a 16-year-old girl identified only as AS, says she suffered prolonged episodes of bullying over four years in Smithtown Central School District schools, including a vicious attack at a party that was filmed and shared online, according to the demand. filed late last month in Suffolk County.
The alleged victim’s parents were so alarmed that they even tried to sell their house to leave the area and bought her a horse as an “emotional support animal,” according to the lawsuit.
However, that backfired when “the veterinarian tragically killed the horse in front of her,” the lawsuit says, without explanation, after which the bullies began calling her “horse girl,” the lawsuit alleges.
Despite video evidence of the attacks, the alleged mean girls suffered no repercussions, likely because the girl who started the attacks was a key member of the cheerleading team, according to Kenneth Mollins, an attorney for the accuser’s family.
“They acted like this kid was a blessing to the school,” he told The Post of one of the alleged lead bullies, who enjoyed interviews with local newspapers about the team’s success.
Meanwhile, the harassed girl “had had enough and even threatened to commit suicide if they forced her to return to school,” her lawyer said. “She would beg not to be sent back there.”
The Post is not identifying the victim or the alleged harassers because they are minors.
AS’s misery began during the 2018-2019 school year, where another girl, whom The Post identifies as AM, allegedly “constantly bullied” her during recess and lunch, the lawsuit claims.
The victim’s family was asked to file a complaint under the Dignity for All Students Act, but an investigation claimed the allegations were “baseless,” according to the lawsuit.
Although the pandemic separated the victim and her harasser, they reunited once again in 2021 on Smithtown West High School’s varsity cheer team, where AM allegedly harassed her along with a handful of other girls, according to the lawsuit.
During a house party the following summer, one of the girls on the cheer team allegedly mocked AS, yelling in his face that he had kissed his crush, the lawsuit states.
Smithtown West High School officials allegedly did little or nothing to help the victim, according to the lawsuit. Smithtown High School West
Another cheerleader then threw her to the ground by her hair while others also began punching and kicking her.
“A camera phone was filming the incident the entire time, it was premeditated,” the lawsuit says, noting how the accuser’s family eventually filed a police report about it after alerting several school officials about the video as evidence.
The accuser then quit the college cheerleading team because of the initial bully, AM, who was allowed to stay on it, according to the lawsuit.
“The school clearly didn’t know how to handle this and never did anything to help this child,” said Mollins, the family’s attorney who works on multiple harassment cases on Long Island.
“The school’s brilliant plan was for the bullies to enter the school through the side door and the victim through the main door of the building, that way they would not interact and there would be no problems. But that clearly didn’t happen,” Mollins said.
Smithtown West High School officials did little to help the victim, the lawsuit alleges.
And when the victim’s family became so desperate to the point of trying to keep her out of school, Mollins said the district threatened to call Child Services and forced AS to return.
With AS back in Smithtown West, he was once again at the mercy of bullies, who allegedly threw food and insults at him during his homecoming celebration last October.
Her parents purchased the “emotional support” horse in November, the lawsuit says, without explaining why or how it was “tragically killed in front of her by the veterinarian” three months later.
The teen threatened to take her own life and was then allowed to finish the year being home-schooled, but that was not the end of the harassment, according to the lawsuit and her family attorney.
AS had to return to school for the last time in May, where bullies allegedly met her and filmed another attack. The school district once again found the claims to be “baseless,” the lawsuit states.
Mollins said this was not uncommon, as several schools in Suffolk County reportedly employ similar strategies when dealing with such extreme bullying cases.
“Working on these cases, it seems that schools do not have adequate resources
The district declined to comment on the lawsuit, but said it takes all allegations of harassment “very seriously” and investigates each case.
Attempts to locate the girl identified as the initial attacker were not immediately successful Monday.
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Source: vtt.edu.vn