Three preteen boys at a Christian school in Virginia are accused of pinning down a black classmate and forcibly cutting off some of her dreadlocked hair while telling her she was ugly, it emerged this week.
Twelve-year-old Amari Allen said the three boys were white and grabbed her in the playground at the school, where they are all pupils in the same grade at Immanuel Christian school, in Springfield, Virginia.
Vice-president Mike Pence’s wife, Karen, also happens to teach there part-time.
The girl has stayed away from the school since the incident on Monday.
“They said my hair was nappy and I was ugly,” she told local news teams, using a term which is typically taken as a racial insult by African Americans, directed at the nature of their hair.
“They put my hands around my back, put their hands over my mouth and started to cut my hair,” said the 12-year-old.
Her grandmother said she enrolled Amari in the private Christian school expecting a safe experience.
“I never thought of bullying being a part of the curriculum,” Cynthia Allen said, according to local news reports.
A police report has been filed and the family has met with school officials.
“It was like she just died. That’s how painful it was for me,” Allen said.
Amari’s grandfather also described the trauma of hearing her account of what happened.
“My heart just broke,” he said. “I was just paralyzed. I couldn’t get myself together.”
The family said officials at the school told them to pray about the incident and have declared themselves unsatisfied with the handling of the incident.
The school issued a statement.
“We are deeply disturbed by the allegations being made, and are in communication with the family of the alleged victim to gather information and provide whatever support we can. We have also reached out to law enforcement to ask them to conduct a thorough investigation.”
Amari speculated charitably about the boys’ behavior.
“Something could have happened that made them do this, because I know that’s the source of most bullying.” she said.
