First disturbance more than a month before official start of 2024 Atlantic Hurricane SeasonPainting rain barrels for a good cause
Parents are worried for their kids’ safety after two teenagers ganged up and beat their daughter at a bus stop along Sunnybrook Road near the Harbor Heights neighborhood. The victim’s parents kept their girls home from school after the fight that took place Wednesday. They are calling on the school district to address bullying and expel the attackers from school. The fight, which was caught on video, shows fists flying and hair pulling. Bella Payne, said, “they came at me, started swinging at me, brought me to the ground and ripped my shirt in half.” Bella, a 10th grader, says she went to the bus stop to pick up her younger sister who was attacked in the same spot Tuesday. “These girls, these two sisters have been bullying my sister since the first day of school,” Payne said. Her sister was too upset to talk on camera, but her parents say they are fed up with the constant bullying. They want the Charlotte County School District to step in. “If this had been addressed properly from the very beginning, I don’t believe this would have happened. I don’t believe my kids would have been pummeled,” their mother said. The family plans to hire a lawyer and take any criminal or legal action they can to make sure their kids are safe in and out of school. The sheriff’s office says the fight caught on camera is still under investigation. WINK News reached out to the family of the other girls and they declined to interview. WINK reached out to the school district, this is their response: We are looking into this. We take Bullying seriously and deal with each and every time someone reports an instance. Both the parents and Students sign a code of Student Conduct Booklet the first day of school.As a District we have a Bullying Policy. The schools have boxes around the campus to report it, there is a Bully button that the students are aware of that they can report being bullied or report anonymously someone who is being bullied. We do everything that we can to ensure that a student can come to school without being threatened, harassed or bullied.