Who is Danielle Kicker? Terrified girl, 12, flees Florida after video of bullies beating her up spreads to two schools
LEHIGH ACRES, FLORIDA: A Grade 6 student reportedly has left the state after a video of her being beaten up by a bully started making the rounds. Even though the 12-year-old child switched schools, the video emerged at the second school as well, and she was bullied yet again.
The child's mother, Danielle Kicker, spoke out following the harrowing ordeal. When the girl started studying at the Veteran's Park Academy For the Arts, Kicker noticed her daughter's reluctance to attend classes. On realizing she was being bullied, she went to the school adminstration to get matters straightened out when things reached a tipping point. "I said this bullying has to stop. This little girl doesn’t want to come to school… She promised me she was in good hands. And then that day, this all happened," Kicker said.
'Nobody protected her'
Soon after Kicker had the meeting, however, the child was cornered by her bully in a bathroom and was beaten up in front of a number of students who did not help. A video of the attack showed her helpless on the ground as another girl punched her and brutally beat her up. "Nobody protected her. No one did. How can you hear all that noise and see all those children running. Where are the adults? Where are all the adults here?" the child's grandmother, Madonna Lewis, said.
When her daughter came home bruised and traumatized, Kicker realized how helpless she felt. "It is absolutely the worst thing that I’ve ever had to go through. It was horrible! You didn’t know what to do. You didn’t know how to take the pain away,” she said.
Kicker decided to enrol the child in another school. However, the video of her being assaulted made its way to the second school as well and soon, the students who saw the video at that school started bullying her too. "They turned their backs on her. She had no one! Lee County School District failed," Kicker said.
'I want her to have a safe place'
Kicker took the difficult decision to take her daughter out of that school as well and sent her to stay with her extended family in Missouri. She is still mulling what to do about the child's schooling. "I have to ensure her that I can find a safe place for her to actually feel safe every day. I just want her to come home. I want her to have a safe place to come,” she said.
Armor Persons, the district school board member for Lehigh Acres, knew about what happened to the child but he had no answer as to why she was not protected on the day of the attack. Persons said, "All the administration is taking courses to make sure everything is reported, from bullying to everything else. It could be more faculty toward the issue or more training or whatever, then that’s what we’ll do," per WINK.
