A Minnesota mother shared her horror upon discovering her nine-year-old daughter was ambushed in the schoolyard because she was “not Muslim.”
Shawna Larson, 33, said Liz Collins of Alpha News that her daughter was attacked on April 29 while at Hidden Valley Elementary School in Savage, MN.
She said she was stunned when her daughter’s teachers approached her and told her that four classmates attacked her “because of her race and religion because she was not Muslim.”
“So it was pretty jarring to hear that,” Larson added.
Shawna Larson, 33, said she was stunned when she was told her nine-year-old daughter had been ambushed in the schoolyard because she was “not Muslim.”
The Minnesota mother said her daughter developed severe bruising from the attack, after four classmates pulled her to the ground by her hair before punching and kicking her.
After she was first told about the bullying incident, Larson said she was shocked by the bullying, but was initially glad that it didn’t appear to have caused any real harm.
But the next day, she said she realized it was worse than she feared when her daughter started getting lots of bruises.
“That’s when we realized he had a black eye and immediately took a photo of it,” he said.
“When she came home that day, I just checked her out and she had bruises on her arms and a bruise on her back, and bruises all over her legs.”
Larson obtained details of her daughter’s attack after realizing the extent of her injuries, and the nine-year-old told her the girls pulled her to the ground by her hair before punching and kicking her.
“She told me that she tried to get up and when she tried to get up and went to get help the first time, and I think it was the first time that she had been knocked to the ground, that she was trying to defend herself.” she said.
“They had told her that if she hit them or touched them, they would hurt themselves and tell the teacher that she had hurt them.”
Larson said her daughter admitted that “all I could do there was stay there, Mom.”
The mother criticized her daughter’s school’s response to the attack, and in particular pointed to camera footage that she said showed the group of bullies running out of camera view to carry out the ambush.
‘My daughter had done nothing to start this or create what had happened. This was just because of his race and her religion. So that was a big deal,’ she said.
The day after learning about the ambush, Larson said her daughter began developing severe bruising on her arms, legs and back.
Larson said her daughter’s bullies threatened her not to fight back and later admitted to her mother that “all I could do was stand there, Mom.”
Larson emphasized that he believes that if a group of Christian students had done the same thing to a Muslim child, there would be a nationwide outcry. .
‘This would be all over the national news. You know, and it shouldn’t be like that. “Our kids shouldn’t even be in the media for things like this to begin with,” she said.
“The same outrage should be felt by all children because no child should be attacked on the playground and feel unsafe at school because their attackers are still there.”
Larson said she decided to report the attack to the Savage Police Department because the school district did not do so.
“Just the lack of action that the school was taking, which I understand to the point that the school has their own rules and their own laws that they have to follow,” he continued.
“But the fact that because this was race and religion drove the fact that they were never suspended or expelled from school or redirected to distance learning instead of continuing in the classroom.”
In a statement to Alpha News, the Burnsville-Eagan-Savage School District said student safety was a “top priority” but declined to offer details.
“We cannot share any private data about students, including specific details about student behavior or discipline,” the statement read.
‘The safety of students and staff is our top priority and we take any incident that may endanger others very seriously.
“We are committed to working with families as we do so and, as always, follow our established policies and procedures when it comes to student behavior, which are outlined in the board-approved student handbook.”
The mother criticized the response of her daughter’s school Hidden Valley Elementary in Savage, Minnesota (pictured) and said she filed a police report when the school district did not
Larson concluded that although she did not want her daughter to change classes, she was forced to do so because two of her attackers shared a classroom with her.
“I thought if anyone should have to change classes, it should have been the students who attacked my daughter because I feel like having to move is telling her that she did something wrong and that she didn’t do anything wrong,” she said. .
‘She was just outside playing in the playground that day.
“But ultimately it came down to she just didn’t feel safe and we let this be her decision and her decision was that she wanted to move because she didn’t feel safe.”
