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Mom wants school to keep daughter safe after beaten up at school

Mom wants school to keep her daughter safe

INDIANAPOLIS (WISH) — An eighth grade girl on Friday was beaten at school by another student.

Her mom claims the Indianapolis Public Schools facility is not doing enough to keep her daughter safe.

Brittney Laymon’s daughter Mariah was beaten up at Thomas Carr Howe Middle School. Laymon gave I-Team 8 a copy of a video posted to social media that showed what happened. Her daughter can be seen backing away moments before another student attacked her and dragged her on the ground by her hair.

“No one stopped the fight. No teachers, the police officer. These girls only got suspended for three days and then went back to school today. So, now my daughter still has to be around these people,” Laymon said Wednesday.

Laymon went to talk to school administrators to get assurances that her daughter would not be attacked again. She recorded the conversation with her phone in her pocket.

One administrator explained why the school could not 100% say this would not happen again. “I’m never going to guarantee something because we live in a ‘nonguaranteeable’ world,” the school administrator said.

Instead, the administrator offered a safety plan of action.

“What we can do is we can remove her from class, any class she has with that student,” said the administrator.

“That doesn’t guarantee that the girl can’t just walk up to her in her classroom,” Laymon responded.

One thing Laymon was most upset about was that a teacher did not stop the attack on her daughter.

The administrator explained why that was the case: “Teachers are not … they don’t have to break up a fight. They can step into the middle, but they put hands on student, and that student then gets hurt, now that teacher is liable.”

Layman said, “It should be a requirement for any official in school to be able to break up a fight without being sued for breaking up the fight.”

Mariah Laymon said, “It’s not right to me that they basically can run up on me at any time, and none of these teachers cant do anything about it, and there’s not enough officers and I’m on my own.”

The whole situation left Laymon searching for answers. “I don’t know what to do. I could go all the way out of my way to take her to a better school, but I shouldn’t have to do that. My kid should be able to go to their neighborhood school and not fear for their lives.”

I-Team 8 reached out to Indianapolis Public Schools about the incident. A district spokesman said they are looking into it.