We know that Benedict was injured in a bathroom fight at Owasso High School, in a Tulsa suburb. Oklahoma is so anti-LGBTQ that it appointed LGBTQ hate-monger Chaya Raichik to the state’s Library Media Advisory Committee. She targeted a pro-LGBTQ teacher at the same school in 2022.
So there’s every reason to be suspicious about the school’s handling of the bathroom fight that preceded Benedict’s death on Feb. 8.
From The Washington Post:
School officials said the students involved were evaluated by a nurse, with staff then notifying their parents or guardians. They have not disclosed how many students were part of the incident and what those who helped break it up said they found when they entered the girls’ bathroom. The Owasso district said the details it could share were limited because of a subsequent police investigation and federal privacy laws.
…
While a search warrant indicated that police initially sought evidence of felony murder in Nex’s death, the department said in a statement last week that “preliminary information from the medical examiner’s office … indicated that the decedent did not die as a result of trauma.”
Police have released school security footage as well as audio from 911 calls made by Sue Benedict [Nex's grandmother and guardian] once she picked Nex up at school Feb. 7. Body-camera video from a school resource officer who responded to the hospital where Nex was treated that afternoon shows Sue Benedict detailing how Nex and a friend said they had been bullied all week by girls “making comments. ‘They’re calling us names, they’re throwing stuff at us.’”
“Running the mouth is freedom of speech, unfortunately,” the officer said. Students “can say mean, hurtful things all day long, and you got to let it roll off your shoulder.”
The Washington Post says it has requested the autopsy report and preliminary findings from the state’s chief medical examiner but has yet to receive them.
I’m not counting on any charges being brought against the school but keeping Oklahoma’s dangerously cruel stance toward LGBTQ citizens in the spotlight could be just as impactful.
