A Korean-American student broke his front tooth in an assault by a classmate, but the school allegedly tried to avoid responsibility. The school was also the subject of a so-called “Sextortion” incident between Korean-American students, which raised parental concerns.
A Korean-American parent, who wished to remain anonymous, said her son, an eighth-grader at John Burroughs Middle School, was assaulted by a Korean-American classmate during lunch in May, but the school failed to take appropriate action.
“My son was about to graduate in early June, and the school called me in mid-May,” said the parent. ”They said he had a fight with a friend and was slightly injured. But in fact, my child was punched in the mouth and nose and had bruises on his face like he fought a boxer. His mouth kept bleeding, so we went to the dentist, who told us that his front tooth was broken.”
The victim’s parent asked the school to take action. However, the school was reluctant to provide her with any information, citing the protection of the student.
“The perpetrator hit my child repeatedly and unilaterally in the nose during lunch,” the victim’s parent said. “I asked the school for the student’s identity and the future course of action, but they refused to tell me for privacy reasons and said that the student could not apologize.”
“My child has a broken tooth that will need to be implanted later,” she said, adding, ”I asked the school to separate my child from the offending student before graduation, but they said no. The only thing they did was to keep him with a counselor until he graduated in June.”
The parent filed a report with the school police but said the school did not follow up.
“I emailed the school several times to ask for an apology from the student to help my child,” she said, “but they told me to bill LAUSD for my child’s medical expenses. I feel like the school was waiting for my child to graduate and covered up the incident.”
The victim graduated from John Burroughs Middle School and is attending high school. The medical bills are still being handled by LAUSD.
“I wish the school and LAUSD would enforce proper discipline in cases of student-on-student assault,” said the victim’s parent. ”I don’t understand why they are trying to protect the offending student. I am preparing a lawsuit against the school.”
The Korea Daily attempted to reach the person who handled the case at John Burroughs Middle School by phone but was unable to reach them.
Around the same time of the incident, it was previously discovered that Korean-American students, both eighth graders at the time, had distributed “sextortion” photos of another Korean-American student to their friends on social media or showed them in person.
According to the victim’s parent, in March or April, the perpetrators targeted the victim, who was a friend. The female student talked to the victim through cell phone texts and asked him to take pictures of his body, and he allegedly took pictures and sent them to her on his cell phone.
BY HYOUNGJAE KIM, HOONSIK WOO [kim.ian@koreadaily.com]
