Missouri GOP Attorney General Andrew Bailey told Newsmax on Thursday that because Hazelwood School District in Missouri promoted DEI (Diversity, Equity and Inclusion) programs over school safety, it has "an enormous amount of culpability" in the savage beating of a white teen by black classmates.
The white teen, identified by the New York Post as 16-year-old Kaylee Gain, is reportedly in a coma after a black teenage girl slammed her head repeatedly into the pavement in a caught-on-camera assault. Reports indicate Gain was left convulsing from the attack and she sustained a skull fracture and possibly frontal lobe brain damage.
During an appearance on "National Report," Bailey said he sees "a first-degree assault" when he watches the video of the beating of Gains, which took place near Hazelwood East High School.
"Let me say, first and foremost, my thoughts and prayers go out to the victim, who’s still in critical condition and in a hospital in St Louis today as we're talking," Bailey said. "If you watch the video, let's keep in mind this occurs at 2:30 p.m. on a Friday in broad daylight in a public street just a few feet from the school where these teens are students, and there's multiple teens involved. It is a horrendous situation where you've got this many individuals that allow this fight to escalate to this level.
"But, if you drill down and you watch the actual assault itself, you see an attacker who repeatedly bludgeons the victim's head against the hard pavement, clearly intending to inflict serious physical injury. The law is clear on this point: the court has to hold a certification hearing on a first-degree assault to determine whether or not this situation is better dealt with in adult court. I'm here to tell you when you have teens at this age, they know better. They know what they're doing. And teens who commit this kind of violent crime need to be held responsible as adults."
He added that identifying "the underlying causes of the fight is going to be critical" in determining "what punishment needs to be meted out here" and also whether the other teens involved need to be taken into custody by the juvenile court.
Bailey also said that the school district promoted "radical DEI programs" in 2021 "in place of school safety," which could have contributed to the brawl outside Hazelwood East High. The school is 1.4% white and 96.7% black.
"In other words, they are more in favor of racial divisiveness than in having school resource officers on their campuses," he said. "In August of 2021, it was announced that the school was requiring the uniformed police officers who were in the schools to take the school district's DEI training and the police agencies refused. They declined to do so. So, the schools booted them off campus.
"So, what role did this radical divisive DEI indoctrination program play in preventing a police officer from being present and detecting this and/or from causing the racial divisiveness that may have motivated this fight? I think the school has an enormous amount of culpability. Look at their statement; there's no moral clarity there. They don't mention the victim once."
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Nicole Weatherholtz ✉
Nicole Weatherholtz, a Newsmax general assignment reporter covers news, politics, and culture. She is a National Newspaper Association award-winning journalist.
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