Parents and students say fights at Miami Springs Middle School happen too frequently, and the district doesn’t do enough about them. NBC 6’s Laura Rodriguez reports.
Parents of a 12-year-old boy are pushing for a South Florida school district to take more action after their son was beaten by his fellow schoolmates in an attack that was caught on cellphone video.
According to the victim and his parents, the violent incident happened on the morning of Dec. 7 before school hours at a park near Miami Springs Middle School. The boy, a sixth grader, says he was playing soccer with his friends when suddenly the kids attacked him.
"I thought of life, like ... I thought of everything that happened in my life," said the boy, whose identity is being withheld at his family's request.
The cellphone video, which was shot by another student, was obtained Tuesday by NBC 6 and captured the moment a boy knocks the victim to the ground as another runs up behind him and starts kicking him in the head.
"The kids were running at me, calling me out because they wanted to jump me," the victim told NBC 6. "I don't know why they wanted to jump me for, but they just started running at me."
The kick was so strong, he ended up with a shoe imprint on his forehead.
The 12-year-old said he does not know the students who bullied him. He believes they are in 7th or 8th grade.
Police confirmed on Wednesday that the two students involved were arrested in December on battery charges.
According to Miami-Dade Public Schools, two of the offenders are students from Miami Springs Middle School. They were assigned away to a success center for ten days, the district said.
School officials later confirmed to NBC 6 that on only one of the offenders remains at schools. They are also looking for a third person involved, described as a white male between 12-14 years old.
"Violence of any type will not be tolerated, on or off school grounds, and any actions such as this will be investigated and disciplined accordingly," the district said in part.
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The boy's parents claim the school district isn't doing enough to stop the bullying and want the offending students to be expelled.
His mother said she is very concerned for her son and even tells him not to go to the bathroom alone.
The boy said he is nervous they might attack him again.
"I don't want to see them again in school, because then they would jump me again," he said.
The parents are looking to transfer their son to another school, however, they say most of them are filled to capacity at this time.
Fights are apparently not uncommon at Miami Springs Middle School. Another video shot in June 2018 shows two girls fighting on campus while others stand around and watch.
"A couple weeks ago, there were nine fights in the morning," said one student, Angie Pages. "Just in the morning."
The parent who provided the video said she's coming forward because she's outraged to hear about yet another violent incident involving students at Miami Springs Middle.
According to the parent, who wished to remain anonymous, school officials punish students over minor incidents, but when incidents are serious, they stop short of expulsion.
