12-year-old girl who claimed classmates cut off her dreadlocks and racially abused her admits to lying about incident
SPRINGFIELD, VIRGINIA: A 12-year-old girl who had earlier claimed that three boys had chopped off her dreadlocks and called her racist slurs has recanted her story. Amari Allen, a 6th-grade student acknowledged that she had made false accusations against three male students, the school as well as the parents confirmed.
The parents said in a statement released on Monday that they apologize for what happened and understand that they have hurt a wider community due to this incident. "To those young boys and their parents, we sincerely apologize for the pain and anxiety these allegations have caused," they said apologizing to the administrators and the families of Immanuel Christian School which Allen attends as well saying they understand the scorn the allegations have brought to them.
"To the broader community, who rallied in such passionate support for our daughter, we apologize for betraying your trust. We understand there will be consequences, and we’re prepared to take responsibility for them. We know that it will take time to heal, and we hope and pray that the boys, their families, the school and the broader community will be able to forgive us in time," they said.
The school said in a statement, "While we are relieved to hear the truth and bring the events of the past few days to a close, we also feel tremendous pain for the victims and the hurt on both sides of this conflict."
As MEA World Wide had previously reported, Allen said that the boys had pinned her down on the playground and chopped off her hair while calling her names. "They called me 'ugly,' said I shouldn't have been born. They called me 'an attention-seeker," she had said in an emotional interview with WLTX. At the time, her grandmother Cynthia Allen had said calling for them to get expelled, "It's very painful. I want to see them dismissed from the school. I want to see something done."