The grief-stricken father of a 14-year-old girl who committed suicide after being brutally beaten by fellow students at her school is now having to fend off attacks from those who wish to make the tragedy about race.
Graphic video of Adriana Kuch being viciously attacked on Feb. 1 by a group of girls as she lay in a fetal position against the Central Regional High School lockers in Berkeley Township, N.J. quickly went viral on social media.
One day after the video was captured on a cellphone, amid a slew of “nasty comments,” Adriana killed herself.
“They think it’s fun to attack people, make videos and post them,” Adriana’s father, Michael Kuch, told ABC7 News.
“Getting hit in the face with a water bottle didn’t hurt Adriana,” he said. “What hurt Adriana was the embarrassment and humiliation. They just kept coming at her.”
(Video: YouTube)
While the race of Adriana’s attackers is unclear, some social media users want to make it about a racial dispute — a notion Kuch vehemently rejects.
He places the blame on the school administrators who, according to Kuch, failed to stop the attack.
“My daughter actually blacks out and they don’t call an ambulance, they take her to the nurse’s office,” Kuch said, adding that Adriana had “never been in a fight before.”
“She’s 98 pounds. She is 5’2″, and she loves everybody,” he said.
On Facebook, Kuch insisted this isn’t “about race.”
Adriana’s father posted a screengrab taken by a person who drove by a group of protesters who were demanding justice for the teen. The photo was captioned with the words, “They are protesting about that white girl”
“Nah, cuz wtf why does black people do that to the white girl,” the poster continued. “Them black people know that white [people] hate them still.”
“People are sending me garbage like this, I am not here to make it about race,” Kuch wrote. “Adriana was beautiful and she loved everyone. she did not care about race, the world would be a better place if everyone was as colorblind as she was.”
The fact is, according to Kuch, Central Regional High School has a problem with handling bullies.
In another Facebook post that began with, “Please share this with everyone,” Kuch writes, “This mother reached out to me and shared several different videos of her daughter being attacked and jumped at Central Regional High School last year while kids are clearly recording before the attack happens.”
“She is not the only mother to reach out to me,” he continues. “I will not share the video’s [sic] of their children being attacked online, but they wanted me to have them to provide to my attorney.”
“This brave young woman faced the school board, and you can tell these people have no sympathy or empathy for what is happening,” Kuch stated. “They are not only the people who can change this, but they are the people who have failed our children.”
In an effort to change things, more than 6,000 members of Kuch’s community have signed an online petition that calls for increased security at the school and changes to the school administration, reports the Daily Mail. One mother said she is currently suing the school over a similar incident involving her daughter.
According to Schools Superintendent Triantafillos Parlapanides, police were not even called following Adriana’s attack.
“I don’t believe a police report was done. We normally just suspend,” he told News12 New Jersey. If a parent wants to press charges, they can with the police,” he said, adding, “We’re not going to double-whammy a kid where they are suspended and then police charges as well.”
“I had to take my daughter covered in blood to the local police station,” Kuch wrote on Facebook.
“I want the entire world to know what these animals did to my daughter,” he stated. “I will not sleep until their family has to watch them stand in front of a judge and plead guilty.”
“Three students involved in the attack have since been charged with third-degree assault in the viral beating, and a fourth was charged with disorderly conduct,” the Daily Mail reports. “They are also suspended from school indefinitely.”
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Melissa Fine is the former executive editor of Casino Player, Strictly Slots, and Poker
Digest magazines. She is a UCLA graduate, news junkie, and dedicated Stargate SG-
1 fan. Melissa currently lives with her dog and two cats in a tiny town in the Sierra
Nevada foothills.
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