EDMOND, Okla. (AP) — Vigils passed off throughout the nation for an Oklahoma teenager who died the day after a fight in a highschool toilet wherein the nonbinary scholar stated they had been a goal of bullying.
Nex Benedict, a 16-year-old who recognized as nonbinary and used they/them pronouns, received into an altercation with three ladies in an Owasso Excessive Faculty toilet who had been selecting on Benedict and a few mates. The women attacked Benedict for pouring water on them, the teenager instructed police in a video launched Friday.
Benedict’s mom referred to as emergency responders to the household house the day after the battle, saying Benedict’s respiratory was shallow, their eyes had been rolling again and their palms had been curled, in response to audio launched by Owasso police.
Vigils for Benedict had been held in Oklahoma and areas throughout the nation, together with Boston, Minneapolis, New York and Huntington Seaside, California within the days following the coed’s loss of life.
Kanan Durham, govt director of Satisfaction on the Pier, stated throughout the Huntington Seaside occasion on Friday that “this single second can’t be the one approach that we honor Nex.”
“It is a lot for all of us,” Durham stated in a report by KABC-TV in Los Angeles. “This group has skilled grief like this so many occasions earlier than.”
Lots of the gatherings had been organized by LGBTQ+ teams to protest in opposition to the frequent bullying suffered by nonbinary teenagers. Benedict’s household says Nex was bullied in school.
At a vigil Saturday in Tahlequah, Oklahoma, the president of TahlEquality stated Benedict’s loss of life was traumatic and the rights group organized for licensed therapists to be accessible on the occasion.
“It’s actually arduous being an LGBT group member in Oklahoma these days as a result of suicide ideation and suicidal ideas occur fairly a bit,” Sanj Cooper told KOKI-TV, including that the LGBT+ group additionally was moved to talk out after Benedict’s passing.
“If something we’re impassioned, the hearth in our stomach has been lit up once more to proceed to battle,” Cooper stated. “If something it doesn’t oppress or preserve us from our voice from being heard. If something it makes it louder.”
Greater than two dozen individuals gathered Friday at All Saints Episcopal Church in McAlester, Oklahoma, for a vigil organized by the McAlester Rainbow Connection.
Matt Blancett, who organized the occasion for the LGBTQ+ group, stated it was vital to carry a vigil in McAlester due to the murder of Dustin Parker, a transgender man, in 2020.
“It exhibits folks that now we have a group, we’re right here, we’re not going anyplace,” Blancett stated.
All Saints Priest Janie Koch stated it is crucial for individuals to succeed in out for assist.
“It is rather crucial because the gamut of feelings are biking to be careful for one another, to be conscious of each other,” Koch stated.
In audio of the decision to police, Benedict’s mom, Sue Benedict, stated she needed authorities to file prices. The officer who responded will be heard within the hospital video explaining that the teenager began the altercation by throwing the water and the courtroom would view it as a mutual battle.
In response to a police search warrant, Sue Benedict indicated to police on Feb. 7 that she didn’t wish to file prices at the moment. She as an alternative requested police to talk to officers at Owasso Excessive Faculty about points on campus amongst college students.
The Feb. 9 search warrant, which was filed with the courtroom on Feb. 21, additionally exhibits investigators took 137 images on the college, together with contained in the lady’s toilet the place the battle occurred. In addition they collected two swabs of stains from the toilet and retrieved information and paperwork of the scholars concerned within the altercation.
Whereas the two-week-old warrant states that police had been looking for proof in a felony homicide, the division has since stated Benedict’s loss of life was not a results of accidents suffered within the battle, primarily based on the preliminary outcomes of the post-mortem.
The police division stated it doesn’t plan to remark additional on the teenager’s reason behind loss of life till toxicology and different post-mortem outcomes are accomplished.
