Cell phone video shows attack on middle school student
PHILADELPHIA (WTXF) New cell phone video shows an attack on a middle school student in Philadelphia. It's making its rounds on social media. Now a local school is taking action.
The boy and his mother spoke to FOX 29.
Imagine watching a video and it's your 13-year-old son being blindsided on his way home from school; struck in the head, not once but four times by two other boys.
Kiara (Kara) Camacho's son Dereck, a 7th grader at Memphis Street Academy Charter School in Port Richmond, fortunately was not seriously hurt.
"I was walking up, I heard footsteps, I didn't pay attention to it. I was walking up, and I felt a punch hit me, I dropped to the floor, then another kids hit me," Dereck told FOX 29.
As in so many cases what ended on the street a few blocks from school, started on social media, where Dereck says a week ago, he corrected a classmate on her grammar in an Instagram post.
"After I corrected her, she got mad. She told her boyfriend, then he texted me, then I texted him, 'Do you want to fight?'" Dereck explained.
Derek admits provoking a fight with her boyfriend, but says they worked it out, or so he thought.
Someone recorded the blows, and suddenly, unbeknownst to Dereck or his mom, the video was everywhere.
Dereck says he and his friends were attacked again Thursday a few blocks from school by two different older boys who accused them of reporting the video.
FOX 29 has learned two students have been suspended and police are involved.