13-yr-old bully batters New Jersey mom unconscious after attacking her 12-year-old son and telling him to 'go back to Mexico'
In what is being reported as a hate crime, a New Jersey mom was knocked unconscious by her son's 13-year-old bully after she confronted him about troubling her 12-year-old son. The suspect has been charged as a juvenile with one count each of aggravated assault and simple assault and is in the custody of his parents.
Beronica Ruiz, the 35-year-old mother, said that the attack happened when she was taking her son, who is in the seventh grade from The Gifted and Talented Academy in Passaic on June 19. She was then walking home with her son and her one-year-old daughter when they were approached by the bully on Lexington Avenue and Monroe Street.
The student went on to verbally assault them and when Ruiz asked him to stop, he physically assaulted her by punching her and knocking her out. She woke up on a stretcher with a bruised face and a fractured eye socket. She also had bloodshot eyes. The bully also hit her son in the face. The attack happened just days after she had spoken to the school's vice principal about the behavior of three students who had told her son to "go back to Mexico", the woman's attorney said.
"They told my son Mexicans should go behind the wall," Ruiz said and when the child said, "We all come from immigrants", the bullies threatened violence, lawyer Daniel Santiago said. "This was a horrific and brutal attack. It takes a certain level of insanity to brutally attack a mother with a stroller and leave her for dead," he added.
"Despite this accusation, the juvenile is presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt," Passaic County Prosecutor Camelia M. Valdes said in a statement.
The mother and father Alfonso Ruiz never heard back from the school about the complaint even though administrators claimed they had spoken to students about it. The school has refused to comment on the situation. The mother believes that if they had handled it in the first place, it would have never escalated to this extent. "'My bad' is not a good excuse for not calling (the parents), not telling them," said Santiago.
"This incident is being taken extremely seriously," the mayor of Passaic said to News 4 in a statement. "I have met with and spoken personally with the family, I have met with my Chief of Police, local officials, and school administration as well as board members to make sure there is accountability and that this family receives justice. The details regarding what led up to this incident remain under investigation. However, one thing is very clear: what occurred to this mother is unacceptable and whatever we need to do as a city, as a community, to do better by our families and our children, we will do."