A South Florida parent is taking legal action against a Hallandale Beach school after her daughter was brutally beaten unconscious by two other students. NBC 6’s Kim Wynne reports
A South Florida parent is taking legal action against a Hallandale Beach school after her daughter was brutally beaten unconscious by two other students.
Christina Neptune and the family's attorney, Rawsi Williams, held a news conference Friday afternoon to call for justice for the brutal attack that was also caught on video.
"This has taken a deep toll on our family," Neptune said. "Every day, the images of the video replay in my head."
Neptune says the video of her daughter being beaten unconscious has haunted her for the past month.
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"They beat her like she was nothing," Neptune said. "And I don’t understand why people involved don’t want to hold themself accountable for something so vicious that happened."
Neptune says her 13-year-old daughter Victoria — a student at Gulfstream Academy of Hallandale Beach— was jumped by two other girls in the cafeteria on April 1.
The video shows her daughter laying on the floor, not moving, while the alleged attackers kept hitting her.
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"You can’t justify that act," Neptune said. "You send your child to a place where you feel it’s supposed to be safe and they let me down. They let my daughter down ... The school has to be held accountable. Children have to be held accountable."
This week, police arrested the two girls accused of the brutal beating.
An attorney for the family says the victim was beaten with cafeteria trays. According to text messages, the alleged attack was planned.
"They said things such as, they want to fight her, they’re going to beat her up. They’re going to do these things," Williams said.
Williams says the victim told staff members about previous run-ins with the other students but says nothing was ever done and the school needs to be held accountable.
"The school has a duty to protect children that are there in its care," Williams said. "This is not a situation where the school was not aware of what’s going on.
NBC 6 reached out to the school for a statement and as of Friday has not heard anything back.
