MANCHESTER – The McLaughlin Middle School students accused of bullying and bloodying a 12-year-old girl say she instigated the confrontation, which garnered wide media coverage.
"She came up to me and starting hitting me," said Ali Abdi, 14, of the incident in the school cafeteria on Feb. 15. He admits that he then hit Morgan Graveline. The blow knocked out Graveline's front teeth.
Abdi said that he had been friends with Graveline, but that she started harassing him after he and his friends rebuffed her advances.
"She was bullying me and my friends," he said.
He said he felt embarrassed for hitting a girl and that he has tried to apologize.
Abdi was suspended from school for at least a week. He said Graveline also was suspended. This was confirmed by a faculty member who was upset over how Ali and another student were portrayed in the media. The faculty member did not want to be identified because of the school's confidentiality policies. Danielle Gauthier, Graveline's mother, denies Morgan was suspended.
District officials and police have refused to comment on the allegations, citing an ongoing investigation and rules concerning juveniles. Manchester School Superintendent Thomas Brennan said he hopes to conclude the district's investigation of the fight and events leading up to it next week. So far police have not filed any charges in the incident.
Morgan Graveline, 12, with her mother Danielle Gauthier at their Manchester apartment on Monday. |
Abdi's account is in stark contrast to the version of events presented by Gauthier in a blog and in subsequent TV interviews. She said her daughter was picked on over the course of several weeks by two "refugee boys" who were upset that she spurned their affections.
Abdi and another student accused in the attack are refugees from Somalia.
Two weeks before the cafeteria incident, Gauthier said, another boy hit Graveline on the bus.
The student, Abdi Karim Maalo, insists he hardly knows Morgan, and that he was not involved in the cafeteria fight. He said he hit her on the bus after she started hitting him and wouldn't let him off the bus.
"I asked to move, and she said, 'No, you get in the last row,' " Maalo said.
Hassan Baruki, left, with his son, Abdi Karim Maalo. Baruki says the recent bullying allegations are about how teens behave, not how refugees act. |
Maalo said the principal ended up suspending him for three days over the incident.
Gauthier defended her daughter's version of events, insisting that she's a "nice, kind girl" and that she's "not even allowed to have a boyfriend." As for the boys, she said: "They should be careful with what they say because this is being investigated by the police."
But Gauthier stressed that her greatest concern was how school officials handled the treatment of her daughter. She insists she was never informed about the first hitting incident on the bus, and that neither the police nor an ambulance was called to the cafeteria after her daughter was struck. Graveline suffered a concussion and needs to undergo painful medical procedures to get teeth fixed, Gauthier said.
Gauthier has retained a lawyer, but she said she's still weighing how to proceed.
Gauthier herself has been accused of engaging in threatening behavior. She was found guilty of two counts of criminal threatening last year for telling a neighbor that she would "slit her throat" as her pit bull allegedly attacked the neighbor's dog.
In December, Gauthier filed for bankruptcy, claiming debts totaling $467,094.
Gauthier defended citing the origin of the students in her blog, which begins with the headline: "My 12 year old daughter brutally attacked by refugee boys at school."
"I don't want anyone thinking this is a racist thing," Gauthier said. "The refugees come from a terrible situation. I have advocated for them. But to punch a girl in the face, to knock her teeth out -- maybe these boys are not being taught the right coping skills."
Hassan Baruki, the father of Abdi Karim Maalo, said the events at the school had more to do with kids being kids than the Somali refugee community.
"My son is a good boy," he said through a translator. "We come from refugee camps, but we are American now. We love Manchester. People have been very good to us here."
Baruki added, however, that Ali, his son's friend, was "a troublemaker."