BEAUMONT, Texas — Beaumont Independent School District officials are speaking out and pushing for change after an assault at West Brook High School.
The incident even got a mention by FOX News' Tucker Carlson Tuesday night but showed the wrong video.
The Beaumont Independent School District released a statement on Facebook late Tuesday night noting that it was aware that FOX news had mentioned the fight. The district also pointed out that the video aired on FOX News was not video shot at West Brook.
The district also claimed that Carlson's assertion that the attacker was allowed to remain on campus was false.
"This story presents false information and does not depict a bathroom at West Brook High School," the district said in the statement.
Based on video obtained by 12News last week the videos do not match as it is obvious that both the victim and attacker are wearing different clothes in both videos.
The bathrooms also appear to be different and the other students in the background are different.
Executive Director of Student Support at BISD Randy Maxwell says this behavior will not be tolerated and there are plans to crack down on this behavior.
Maxwell says social media and peer pressure have played a role in these fights before.
"Some of it involves social media. Some of it involves the fact that kids get involved with a situation and then they want to retaliate in a different way," he said.
BISD has hired student wellness coordinators in the past to help students cope and also hired a behavioral interventionist to talk to students who may be going through hard times.
There are already programs in place, such as parents and community support, or PACS.
But BISD School Board Trustee Joe Evans feels like it's not enough. He says there need to be more positive male role models talking to these students.
"One of the things we've tried to do is get more males to mentor because the kids you mentor today may think twice about going and getting into a fight tomorrow," he said.
Maxwell admits more must be done so that emotions don't boil over like they did last week at the high school.
"We have a lot of positive things that we're doing. We also have a lot of preventative things that we're doing and I've named several of them, but the reality is if you choose to break the rules, you get in trouble period," Maxwell said.
Maxwell says they have close to 400 volunteers as part of BISD's PACS program and agrees more needs to be done to reach students and prevent this kind of violent behavior.
"Your volunteers, 100 Black Men can help. Rotary can help. Kiwanis can help. There's all types of organizations that can partner with students," he said.
Maxwell adds that it's unacceptable that students were standing around filming the assault and not intervening.
He says this type of behavior will be punished moving forward.
A Beaumont city councilman previously told 12News he is calling for state and national-level change after this "horrific incident".
“A student was brutally beaten in one of the boy's restrooms while other students watched,” Beaumont City Councilman Mike Getz said in a Facebook post.
Councilman Mike Getz said he was asked to be a Beaumont ISD ambassador. The morning after the first night of ambassador training, Getz saw a video that has since surfaced on social media.
"My cell phone was blowing up with people sending me links to a horrific incident at West Brook,” Getz said.
Getz says BISD has a policy in place where volunteers should monitor bathrooms, but says a volunteer wasn't there at the time of the assault.
Maxwell declined to comment when asked by 12News about the volunteers.
The video, which 12News has seen, appears to have been taken in the boy's bathroom. A teenage boy can be seen punching another boy, who is on the floor, in the face and head at least 14 times before kicking him in the face.
The boy on the floor tries to cover his face as he is hit multiple times. Other teens can be seen in the bathroom when the incident is taking place.
12News is not showing the video in order to protect the identities of the minors involved and because we have not been able to vet the circumstances surrounding where and when the original video was taken.
The boy who was seen punching and kicking the other was arrested and could possibly face robbery and assault charges, according to Getz. The councilman hopes he will be prosecuted as an adult,
“This is not his first rodeo,” Getz said. “He has been arrested before, but current state and federal law allow these offenders back on campus after a relatively short stay at a juvenile detention facility.”
This is a developing story. We will update with more if and when we receive more confirmed information.
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