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Assault Over Immigration Poster Refuted
By PAUL J. WEBER
Associated Press Writer
DALLAS (AP) -- An eighth-grader lied when she claimed a mob of angry students assaulted her for making a poster that read, "If you love our nation, stop illegal immigration," school administrators in Texas say.
Surveillance cameras at Athens Middle School show the 13-year-old student purposefully making scratch marks on her face and arms in a hallway after a classmate took her poster in a "snatch-and-grab" style, school superintendent Fred Hayes said Wednesday.
The student had told administrators she was clawed and hit after about 20 students, livid over the poster message she chose for a class project, swarmed around her and wrested away the sign.
Hayes said the school is pursuing misdemeanor criminal charges against the girl for making a false report.
The girl's parents apologized for their daughter in a written statement. They did not return requests for comment.
"I see that my daughter was not assaulted and put the marks on her body," Shera Bowers, the girl's mother, wrote.
J.R. Bowers, the girl's father, wrote in the statement that he agreed with the charges expected to be filed against his daughter.
The alleged scuffle led to the suspension of three Hispanic students.
The students returned to class Wednesday, but Hayes said their punishment remained appropriate because they were involved in taking the poster. Hayes said he apologized to the parents of the suspended students because they were "cast in a negative light."
News of the alleged attack - and the suspension of the three Hispanic students - touched off a flurry of comments on the Internet and to the Athens school district. Hayes said the district received messages from people well outside Athens, a city of 12,000 about 70 miles south of Dallas. He described some of the messages as "irrational."
Assault Over Immigration Poster Refuted
By PAUL J. WEBER
Associated Press Writer
DALLAS (AP) -- An eighth-grader lied when she claimed a mob of angry students assaulted her for making a poster that read, "If you love our nation, stop illegal immigration," school administrators in Texas say.
Surveillance cameras at Athens Middle School show the 13-year-old student purposefully making scratch marks on her face and arms in a hallway after a classmate took her poster in a "snatch-and-grab" style, school superintendent Fred Hayes said Wednesday.
The student had told administrators she was clawed and hit after about 20 students, livid over the poster message she chose for a class project, swarmed around her and wrested away the sign.
Hayes said the school is pursuing misdemeanor criminal charges against the girl for making a false report.
The girl's parents apologized for their daughter in a written statement. They did not return requests for comment.
"I see that my daughter was not assaulted and put the marks on her body," Shera Bowers, the girl's mother, wrote.
J.R. Bowers, the girl's father, wrote in the statement that he agreed with the charges expected to be filed against his daughter.
The alleged scuffle led to the suspension of three Hispanic students.
The students returned to class Wednesday, but Hayes said their punishment remained appropriate because they were involved in taking the poster. Hayes said he apologized to the parents of the suspended students because they were "cast in a negative light."
News of the alleged attack - and the suspension of the three Hispanic students - touched off a flurry of comments on the Internet and to the Athens school district. Hayes said the district received messages from people well outside Athens, a city of 12,000 about 70 miles south of Dallas. He described some of the messages as "irrational."
