An 11-year-old girl was beaten by a classmate at Nautilus Middle School in Miami Beach, suffering a concussion so severe that she has been too terrified to return to class. The attack, captured on students' cellphones, has led prosecutors to file a second-degree felony aggravated battery charge against the classmate, who was not identified because of her age.
According to the New York Post, the classmate dragged and repeatedly punched the girl in the face inside the cafeteria while other students filmed. County schools police officers responded after being alerted to the altercation, the outlet reported. The victim's mother told WPLG that her daughter was struck over 40 times before anyone intervened, adding that she was grateful her daughter was alive.
A separate account from WSVN, which could not be confirmed to describe the same incident, reported that a girl at the same school was attacked after a classmate pulled her hair and then repeatedly slapped and kicked her in the head. That station reported the attack lasted around 20 seconds and left the victim with injuries to her back and head, and said the student accused in that case was suspended for 10 days.
Charges Escalated From Diversion to a Felony
The Miami-Dade State Attorney's Office said the case was first referred for a misdemeanor battery charge through a juvenile diversion program, according to the Post. Prosecutors later filed the second-degree felony aggravated battery charge after the victim's mother requested prosecution and authorities weighed the severity of her daughter's injuries, the Post reported. A juvenile court arraignment hearing was scheduled for Thursday, per the same report.
The case echoes a 2023 Miami-Dade incident in which a 15-year-old was accused of repeatedly punching a 9-year-old girl on a school bus traveling from Coconut Palm K-8 Academy, an attack also caught on cellphone video, according to NBC 6 South Florida. In that case, prosecutors upgraded the charge after the teenager initially received only a civil citation, the station reported, and video showed a second student joining in the attack.
School Says Staff Tried to De-Escalate Beforehand
Miami-Dade County Public Schools officials said staff had met with both students before the attack in an effort to de-escalate the situation, the Post reported. The school said the matter was handled in accordance with the code of student conduct and was referred to law enforcement, per the same report.
The victim's attorney disputed that account, accusing the school of failing to protect the girl despite what the attorney described as a prior warning of an imminent attack, according to the Post's reporting. The victim's mother told the outlet that every day since the attack has been difficult, but that she puts on a face because she still has to show up for her daughter. She said she wants to keep her daughter close to protect her, and said simply that school violence and bullying have to stop.
In the WSVN report, the mother of the girl described there said she plans to file a lawsuit over the attack, retaining attorney Michael Grieco. That outlet reported the family's attorney also shared video of another student at the school being attacked from behind and struck repeatedly in the head.
How Florida Schools Track Fights and Violence
Florida's School Environmental Safety Incident Reporting System, known as SESIR, is meant to track 26 categories of crime, violence and disruptive behavior occurring on campus, on school transportation, or at school-sponsored events, according to the Florida Department of Education. Schools report incidents to their districts, which then forward standardized data to the state.
How consistently that system has captured reality in Miami-Dade has been questioned before. WLRN reported that Miami-Dade County Public Schools reported just 311 fights to the state in the 2015-16 school year, down from more than 5,000 the year before, a drop the district attributed to a policy change limiting state reports to major fights only. At Madison Middle School, WLRN found, reported fights fell from 55 to zero in a single year, even though one fight that year sent a student to the hospital with a broken jaw.
