TURLOCK, Calif. – Turlock police are investigating an after-school fight that occurred last Friday between two girls at a school bus stop.
Irina Lizarraga Acuna says she does not blame the teenager who hit her 13-year-old daughter. Instead, she blames the adult who allegedly egged her on.
“It’s horrible for a parent to watch that. It’s awful,” Acuna told KTXL. “You feel really … I feel guilty, you know? I wish I would have been there to help her.”
Another student captured the fight on a cell phone video, which was later posted to Facebook. “Hit her. It’s after school, it’s after school,” the woman can be heard saying in the video. “You can’t get in trouble.”
“Hit her. It’s after school, it’s after school,” the woman can be heard saying in the video. “You can’t get in trouble.”
The victim’s mother says both students go to Turlock Junior High School.
“I was just arriving to work. She called me crying that she needed my help,” Acuna said.
For Acuna, watching the video of her daughter being attacked was bad enough. However, what had her fuming was watching an adult physically restraining her daughter so the other teen could hit her.
“In the video, you can see that the teenager doesn’t even want to hit my daughter. She’s being forced by her mom to hit her,” she said. “You know, I’m not even mad, I can’t be mad at the teenager. I’m mad at the mom. How could you force your daughter to hit someone else?”
According to Acuna, the girl in the video had been bullying her daughter. However, she says her daughter should not have confronted that girl on the bus.
“My daughter told her, ‘Stop talking about me. Leave me alone. Stop, you know, calling me names.’ And told the girl she wasn’t afraid of her, to leave her alone, and this is when everything else started,” Acuna said.
In a statement to KTXL, the Turlock Unified School District said the following:
“Like most who have viewed this video, we were appalled by this attack. We have identified those shown in the video and have shared this information with the Turlock Police Department who are conducting an investigation.”
Acuna says she’s pressing charges against the woman in the video.
“She needs to learn her lesson, you know, not to touch anybody else’s kid,” she said.
TUSD also confirmed that even though the fight happened off campus, the students involved can still be disciplined. The district says they are conducting their own investigation into the fight.