Mother says son’s beating in Lynnwood school was racist

LYNNWOOD — Two friends were horsing around in the hallway Dec. 3 at Alderwood Middle School.

What happened next was a racist assault, an African-American student’s mother told The Daily Herald.

A third boy approached and pushed one of the roughhousing students, the student’s mother said. Another kid then attacked her son and took him to the ground, she said. Then he repeatedly punched him in the head while other students laughed and took video on their phones.

At least one video was posted to social media.

The African-American student, 12, told police the other boys quietly called him “Black boy” and a racist slur so only he could hear, according to the Snohomish County Sheriff’s Office. Both perpetrators were white, the mother said. She said her son suffered a concussion from a beating that lasted over a minute.

The attack ended when teachers intervened, video shows.

The boy’s mother has been trying to keep the video from circulating.

One of the attacking students faces criminal charges for fourth-degree assault, a misdemeanor, sheriff’s office spokesperson Courtney O’Keefe said. The investigation remained active Wednesday.

The mother got a call from her son around 10 a.m. She said he was crying and “hollering in fear.”

“He’s not doing good at all emotionally, psychologically, physically,” she said. “His dignity was taken from him.”

After the incident, the school’s principal, Brian Stewart, wrote in a message to families, “The Edmonds School District and our Alderwood Middle School community do not tolerate behavior that creates an unsafe environment.”

Stewart added the school has been in contact with the African-American student’s family “and will continue to offer support to them as we work through this.” The mother met with the principal Wednesday afternoon but afterward said she didn’t feel the school was doing enough to ensure her son’s continued safety at Alderwood.

For legal reasons, the district cannot share disciplinary action taken against students, spokesperson Harmony Weinberg said. She added, however, that “our district will hold anyone who violates our school policies accountable.”

While over half of the district’s kids are students of color, almost 90% of the teachers are white, according to the Teachers of Color Foundation. At Alderwood Middle School, about 8% of students were Black in the 2020-21 school year, state data show.

“How are they making sure these kids can come to these schools and feel like everybody else?” said Joshua Binda, 22, the chair of Lynnwood’s Diversity, Equity & Inclusion Commission.

Binda, who has been working with the student’s family, was also elected to the City Council in November.

Binda added in an interview this “could’ve easily been me.” He also worries about his younger brother in local schools.

The district’s race and equity policy, adopted in 2017, focuses on eliminating systemic racism in schools. Starting in 2018-19, every school in the district had an equity team dedicated to the issue.

In early 2020, the School Board passed a resolution encouraging staff to participate in a “Black Lives Matter Month of Action.” The resolution notes that “opportunity gaps over many years have created persistent achievement gaps for our students of color.”

This latest attack comes after multiple incidents in Snohomish County schools have led to conversations about racism. In one filmed instance in Monroe, a Black high school student said he was trying to stop two white students from bullying his friend when one of them repeatedly used a racial slur.

In another instance in Monroe, students spat on, shoved and used racist and homophobic slurs against a Black sixth-grader.

The students targeted in the three incidents stayed home from school out of fear. The Alderwood student’s mother wants the school to put in place a safety plan before he returns.

The son hasn’t been talking much, his mother said. He’s been angry, wondering, “Why me?”

Jake Goldstein-Street: 425-339-3439; jake.goldstein-street@heraldnet.com. Twitter: @GoldsteinStreet.