Oklahoma police have released body camera and security footage as well as audio from 911 calls made by the grandmother of a nonbinary teenager after a fight in a public school bathroom involving several other students.
In the 911 call after Nex collapsed, their grandmother said Nex’s breathing was shallow and that the 16-year-old’s eyes were rolling back and hands were curled. She said her grandchild did not use illegal drugs.
“I hope this ain’t from [Nex’s] head,” Sue Benedict told the emergency dispatcher.
The 10th-grader’s death was still being investigated by Owasso police Saturday, with final autopsy results pending. While a search warrant indicated that police initially sought evidence of felony murder, the department said in a statement this week that “preliminary information from the medical examiner’s office is that a complete autopsy was performed and indicated that the decedent did not die as a result of trauma.”
Police Lt. Nick Boatman did not return messages Friday about the statement, video and 911 calls. He previously said that the final autopsy report could take up to six weeks and that officials were awaiting results before deciding whether to file charges.
Tulsa County District Attorney Steve Kunzweiler was awaiting the investigators’ findings before deciding whether to file criminal charges, according to a Friday statement from his office.
“A family in our community is grieving and we empathize with their sorrow during this difficult time. While much has been speculated about this child’s death in social media, we will maintain the integrity of law enforcement’s investigation, and allow them to do their job,” Kunzweiler’s statement said.
The Washington Post has requested Nex’s autopsy report and preliminary findings from Oklahoma’s chief medical examiner.
Owasso High School officials have not disclosed how many students were involved in the incident, what those who helped break it up said they found when they entered the bathroom or whether students were suspended. The school district said the details it could share were limited because of the police investigation and federal privacy laws.
Benedict, who had adopted her grandchild, has said that Nex was being bullied before the fight and that she picked Nex up from school, then went to a hospital for an MRI given Nex’s facial bruises and scratches. Benedict contacted police to report what had happened at the school.
In her initial 911 call, Benedict can be heard saying she is at a local emergency room and wanted to file charges after Nex had been “attacked at school.”
“I’m furious that the school just kind of said ‘come get your kid,’ ” she said.
At the hospital, a nearly 20-minute body-camera video from the school resource officer who responded has Benedict detailing how Nex had told her they and a friend had been bullied all week by three girls “making comments, they’re calling us names, they’re throwing stuff at us.”
Officer Caleb Thompson asked whether Nex had alerted school staff about any bullying. Nex said no, adding, “I didn’t really see the point in it. I told my mom.”
Nex said they didn’t know the students that attacked them, ninth-graders who had targeted Nex and a friend in the bathroom “because of the way that we dress.”
The school security video that police released Friday shows Nex and several other students entering a girl’s bathroom about 1 p.m. on Feb. 7. The video later shows Nex walking with a security guard down a hallway at 2 p.m. and then out of the school with Benedict.
“I was talking with my friend [in the bathroom], they were talking with their friends,” Nex told Thompson, “and we were laughing, and they had said something like, ‘Why do they laugh like that?’ They were talking about us in front of us.”
Nex reacted by squirting part of a water bottle at the girls and said “all three of them came at me.”
“They grabbed on my hair. I grabbed onto them,” Nex told Thompson in the hospital exam room. “I threw one of them into a paper towel dispenser. And then they got my legs out from under me and got me on the ground and started beating the [expletive] out of me. And then my friend tried to jump in. I’m not sure, I blacked out.”
Thompson said police could charge the girls with assault and battery but warned that Nex also could be charged for having “essentially started” the fight by throwing water. “That still does not give them a right to put their hands on you. They’re just as guilty as you are,” he said.
“Running the mouth is freedom of speech, unfortunately,” Thompson said. Students “can say mean, hurtful things all day long, and you got to let it roll off your shoulder.”
Nex’s gender identity never came up in the interview.
Benedict agreed not to press charges but noted that Nex had been suspended by the school and insisted Thompson follow up with administrators about why they didn’t alert police. “They are in the wrong for that,” Benedict said, adding, “I want the parents to know what their girls are doing.”
Thompson said he planned to follow up with the school the next day.
“Any criminal-type action, the school is supposed to give us a call,” he said. “And I’m not trying to make excuses for them, but I’ve seen it happen both ways: Maybe they forgot, maybe there was other things going on. Who knows? But the fact of the matter is, they dropped the ball on this one of not notifying me right away.”
“I told them I wanted something done,” Benedict said. “That is assault.”
In future, he advised Benedict to call police herself.
“Hopefully it doesn’t happen again,” she said.
The family’s attorney, Tulsa-based lawyer Jacob Biby, said Saturday that he had no comment on the information police had posted. Biby released a statement this week saying Nex’s family are conducting an independent investigation into the death.
Nex’s death has led to calls for justice from LGBTQ groups. Weekend vigils are planned in Oklahoma for the teen.
