A 12-year-old girl has accused her classmates of pinning her down on the playground and forcibly cutting off her dreadlocks because they were “nappy” and “ugly”, Newsweek reported.
Sixth grade student Amari Allen, who attends Immanuel Christian private school in in Virginia, says a group of white boys held her down during recess to cruelly snip her hair.
According to Amari, the incident took place on September 23 while she and her classmates were enjoying recess.
She says three white, male students from her grade approached her on the playground and pinned her to the ground. One covered her mouth while another held her arms behind her back and a third cut her dreadlocks with scissors, all the while taunting her and her “nappy” hair.
“They kept laughing me and calling me names,” Amari told WUSA9 . “They called me ‘ugly,’ said I ‘shouldn’t have been born.’ They called me an ‘attention-seeker.'”
At first, Amari was too afraid to bring up the incident to anyone, but a few days later her grandmother noticed her dreads were haphazardly cut.
Although Amari denied anything happened, her grandmother persisted. That was when the student finally broke down in tears and admitted what had happened to her.
“It was very painful,” her grandmother, Cynthia Allen, said. “I want to see them dismissed from the school. I want to see something done.”
Amari says this isn’t the first time she’s been bullied at school. The same group of boys have harassed her in the past, stealing her lunch and calling her names.
Her grandfather, Dewuane Allen, said his heart broke when he heard about hat had happened to his granddaughter.
“I was just paralyzed,” he admitted. “I couldn’t get myself together.”
Amari’s grandmother added, “It was like she just died. That’s how painful it was for me.”
The family filed a complain with the Fairfax County police department and also met with school officials.
According to NBC Washington , Head of School Stephen Danish said administrators were “deeply disturbed by the allegations.”
“We take seriously the emotional and physical well-being of all our students, and have a zero-tolerance policy for any kind of bullying or abuse,” he said in a statement.
It’s unclear whether any consequences have been passed down to the boys accused in the attack.
Amari’s family told WJLA they left their meeting with school officials feeling “unsatisfied,” and are refusing to allow the young girl to return to the school until they can be assured the alleged bullying will not continue.
This is not the first time Immanuel Christian School has made headlines this year.
Back in January, second lady Karen Pence, wife of Vice President Mike Pence, took a job teaching art at the evangelical Christian school, which was revealed to refuse enrollment to LGBT students , as well as employment to LGBT teachers.
An employee application form read that any potential hires are prohibited from engaging in homosexual acts, adding that God intended for sex to strictly occur “between a man and a woman who are married to each other.”
h/t: Newsweek , NBC Washington , WUSA9 , WJLA