WARNING: Some of the pictures you’ll see in this story may be disturbing.
Michel'le Pratt is outraged after she says her son, a student at Maury High School in Norfolk, was beaten at the school by fellow students.
The alleged beating may be the result of a TikTok challenge.
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Pratt showed News 3 a TikTok that she said shows someone demonstrating what she calls a "TikTok challenge" that she believes caused her son to be beaten.
“There’s a TikTok challenge where you say, '3, 2, 1' and you just hit any person that’s near you," Pratt explained.
She showed News 3 pictures she took of her son’s injuries.
His right eye and jaw were swollen, his lip had a hole in it, which had to be stitched up, and according to medical paperwork she showed News 3, her son was also diagnosed with a concussion.
According to Pratt, the attack happened Wednesday morning when her son went into a bathroom at the high school.
“He just walked to the bathroom, went into the bathroom, and he said there was a whole bunch of people in the bathroom," said Pratt. "He said that they were punching him. They just kept punching on him.”
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But it’s what she says happened after, or rather didn’t happen, that she’s really upset about.
“They did not give him the medical attention and I just keep getting, ‘Oh, nothing was wrong. He was fine,’” Pratt said.
She said for about an hour, while the school was trying to get hold of her, no one called 911 to have her son checked out.
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“All I could do was just cry," Pratt said when we asked how she reacted. "My son doesn’t want to go back to any school right now. So now, I have to possibly put him in counseling. I’ll have to pay for that just to get him over his trauma.”
News 3 made multiple attempts Thursday and Friday to talk to someone with Norfolk Public Schools and Norfolk police.
*** On Saturday March 29th, the school district responded with the following statement
Good morning,
We are aware of this incident at Maury High School. School staff, including the nurse, responded immediately to assess the incident and provide support. While we do not share specific details about individual students, we can confirm that this incident involved only two students. As always, we take these matters seriously and follow division protocols to ensure appropriate support and response. The safety and well-being of our students are always our top priorities. The Norfolk Police Department was on school grounds as part of an unrelated (and pre-planned) lockdown drill. No message regarding the incident was sent to student families.
Norfolk police said they responded to the school for a report of an assault and as of Thursday, the incident was being investigated.
Norfolk Public Schools did not respond to our request for comment.
Pratt hopes parents will now have a talk with their kids.
“Everyone is going through stuff. Life is hard for everyone. Talk to your kids to not be so cruel. You don’t have to be cruel. Be nice to other people because you never know what other children are even going through," Pratt said.
She said she has talked with the high school’s assistant principal and school resource officer and they acknowledge the incident, but as of Thursday, were not taking any action while they investigated.
That’s not good enough for Pratt, though.
“I am not going to stop until my son gets justice because what was done to him, and the way he was treated, was inhumane," she said.
