Cops in Florida are on the case after a video depicting a brawl between teenage girls went viral.
On Thursday, Boca Raton, Fla. resident Shakeel Munshi posted a video on Facebook that allegedly showed three teenage girls beating down his 14-year-old daughter, Manaal.
The video – reportedly recorded by a bystander witnessing the fight – shows three unidentified teens violently kick and punch the student to the ground.
As Manaal gets back up, she is then attacked again by the girls. Manaal is shown cowering on the ground, protecting her face while the violence continues. Other teenagers surrounded the fight, filming the incident on their smartphones rather than helping the defenseless girl.
The fight took place at a park near West Boca High School, where Manaal is a Grade 9 student.
WARNING: Video is of graphic nature
“My daughter…was getting bullied by a couple of school girls because she was Muslim,” Munshi wrote on Facebook. “She didn’t picked (sic) up a hand because (she) don’t want to fight back.”
Munshi told NBC6 his daughter has bruises on her face and a black eye from the fight.
“She used to say that they’re making fun of her…that she’s terrorist, kind of thing.”
The Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office told the Miami Herald Manaal thought she was meeting the girls just to talk, and stressed that at no time were race or bullying ever factors in the altercation.
Cops told NBC6 “it was apparently over a boyfriend.”
The family of the injured teen has filed a police report. The Council on American-Islamic Relations is calling for criminal charges filed against the teens, according to Wilfredo Ruiz, its communications director.
Robert Avossa, superintendent of Palm Beach County School, said in a statement that he is “saddened by this senseless violence” and disappointed that the students who videotaped the beating didn’t come to the girl’s aid.
“As a community, we cannot ever get to a place where we are passive bystanders of such acts,” he said. “We must expect more from one another and certainly, I expect more from our students.”
– With files from The Associated Press
