A 16-year-old Oklahoma highschool pupil who died a day after an altercation in a college restroom which will have been prompted by bullying over gender identification didn’t die on account of accidents sustained within the combat, police mentioned Wednesday.
Police within the suburban Tulsa neighborhood of Owasso are investigating the loss of life of 16-year-old Nex Benedict, whose household mentioned recognized as nonbinary and used they/them pronouns.
Though the reason for loss of life has not been decided, Owasso police mentioned in an announcement preliminary post-mortem outcomes point out the teenager didn’t die on account of accidents sustained within the combat.
“Presently, any additional feedback on the reason for loss of life are presently pending till toxicology outcomes and different ancillary testing outcomes are obtained,” the assertion says.
Neither police nor faculty officers have mentioned what led to the combat. However Benedict’s household says there had been harassment due to the teenager’s nonbinary identification.
“Whereas at Owasso Excessive College, Nex was attacked and assaulted in a toilet by a gaggle of different college students,” the household mentioned Wednesday in an announcement launched by their lawyer. “A day later, the Benedicts’ lovely little one misplaced their life.”
Police Lt. Nick Boatman mentioned detectives are interviewing employees and college students on the faculty to be taught extra about what occurred.
Benedict was capable of stroll out of the toilet after the Feb. 7 combat however was taken to a hospital by their household and despatched residence that evening. The following day, paramedics have been dispatched to the house for a medical emergency and took Benedict to a hospital emergency room, the place they later died, police mentioned.
Nex Benedict’s mom, Sue Benedict, advised The Unbiased the teenager suffered bruises throughout their face and eyes after they and a transgender pupil obtained right into a combat in a college restroom with three older ladies.
“I did not understand how dangerous it had gotten,” Sue Benedict advised the outlet.
Household ‘deeply unhappy’
Malia Pila, Nex Benedict’s sister, described her sibling as a “fantastic little one that impacted all of us in methods which are tough to actually articulate of their significance.”
“We’re deeply, deeply unhappy about their passing,” she wrote in a textual content message Wednesday to The Related Press.
Sue Benedict mentioned in an announcement on a GoFundMe web page set as much as assist cowl funeral bills that the household was nonetheless studying to make use of the teenager’s most well-liked identify and pronouns.
“Please don’t choose us as Nex was judged, please don’t bully us for our ignorance on the topic,” she wrote. “Nex gave us that respect and we’re sorry in our grief that we missed them.”
Owasso police mentioned in an announcement on Tuesday that Nex Benedict died on Feb. 8, the day after the combat at the highschool. Boatman mentioned investigators will ahead the outcomes of that probe to the native district lawyer to find out what, if any, costs must be filed.
When requested if the scholars concerned within the combat could possibly be charged with a hate crime, Boatman mentioned: “All crimes and costs will likely be on the desk.”
‘Bullies have to be held accountable’: governor
College officers in Owasso, a suburb about 20 kilometres northeast of Tulsa, mentioned in an announcement a bodily altercation occurred in a restroom and that college students have been within the restroom for lower than two minutes earlier than the combat was damaged up by different college students and a employees member.
After the combat, every of the scholars “walked beneath their very own energy to the assistant principal’s workplace and the nurse’s workplace,” and faculty officers really helpful to the guardian of one of many college students concerned that they go to a medical facility for additional examination.
Police mentioned they weren’t notified of the combat till the coed arrived on the hospital, and {that a} report was taken at the moment.
Oklahoma’s Republican-led Legislature has handed a number of new legal guidelines focusing on transgender and nonbinary individuals lately, together with payments that prohibit youngsters from receiving gender-affirming medical care and prohibiting using nonbinary gender markers on beginning certificates.
Gov. Kevin Stitt additionally has signed payments that prohibit transgender women and girls from taking part in on feminine sports activities groups and forestall transgender youngsters from utilizing faculty loos that correspond to their gender identification.
Stitt’s workplace launched an announcement Wednesday on behalf of the governor and his spouse, Sarah.
“Sarah and I are saddened to be taught of the loss of life of Nex Benedict, and our hearts exit to Nex’s household, classmates, and the Owasso neighborhood,” he mentioned. “The loss of life of any little one in an Oklahoma faculty is a tragedy — and bullies have to be held accountable.”
ACLU decries discriminatory insurance policies
Among the many many anti-trans payments being thought-about this yr in Oklahoma are measures to ban gender-affirming look after adults, prohibit faculty workers from utilizing a pupil’s most well-liked pronouns if they do not correspond with the intercourse assigned at beginning and prohibit state legal guidelines or govt orders that acknowledge any gender moreover female and male.
Oklahoma’s superintendent of public colleges, Ryan Walters, additionally has embraced anti-trans insurance policies and confronted bipartisan blowback after he appointed a right-wing social media influencer from New York recognized for posting anti-trans rhetoric to a state library panel.
One among Chaya Raichik’s posts on her Libs of TikTok account on the X platform, previously referred to as Twitter, final yr exhibiting an edited video vital of a public faculty librarian in Tulsa led to a number of consecutive days of bomb threats to varsities within the district.
“Insurance policies that discriminate and hateful rhetoric spewed by state officers towards transgender youth make our colleges much less protected and deny youth like Nex the longer term they deserve,” ACLU Oklahoma mentioned in an announcement.
In an announcement Wednesday, Walters mentioned he mourned the lack of the Owasso pupil and that he would “pray for God’s consolation for the household and your complete Owasso neighborhood.”