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Teen Talent Show Gets Ugly: Brooklyn Girl Viciously Beaten By Classmates
By
Ben Yakas
Published Apr 15, 2011
Modified Apr 15, 2011
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By
Ben Yakas
Published Apr 15, 2011
Modified Apr 15, 2011
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Last year, nine Massachusetts teens were hit with a variety of felony charges after they cyber-bullied a girl who committed suicide. But when NYC teens want to bully each other, they skip the computer and go straight for the padlock inside a sock. Five Brooklyn high school girls are accused of beating up a fellow classmate in a Glee-Gone-Wrong attack: "I wasn't able to open my jaw. I wasn't able to talk. I wasn't able to sing," said 17-year-old victim Shacara McLaurin.
McLaurin claims that one of the girls wanted to hurt her "because I sang better than her...It was jealousy. It was all due to the talent show." According to her mother, McLaurin received an ominous Facebook message the day before the attack saying, "they were going to get her and hurt her so she wouldn't ever be able to sing again." McLaurin was attacked by the five girls, who go to Brooklyn Academy High School and Bedford-Stuyvesant Preparatory School, outside the home of her voice coach.
One witness saw them beating her with padlock inside a sock: "I could see them hitting her and hitting her and hitting her with something. She started out on the stoop, and you could tell she didn't want to fight, but she came down, and they fought with everybody hyping it up. She was bleeding," said Nikia Eddy, who watched the melee from her apartment window. One of the suspects allegedly yelled, "Yo, b---h. I got a lock," at McLaurin, too.
McLaurin was left with six stitches near her left ear, a deep gash on her face and a bruised jaw; a friend who was with her, and tried to help her, was also beaten up. The five girls, Aaliyah Smith,16; Decory Fletcher, 16; Ashanti Garner, 17; Brittany Williams, 17; and Chazmia Morrison, 17; have been charged with felony assault, menacing, weapons possession and harassment. At least one of them, Morrison, has admitted to being involved in the fight: "I did fight that day, but nothing was planned. There was a padlock involved."
Tagged
beating
Bedford-Stuyvesant
brooklyn
bullying
padlock
padlock in sock
Shacara McLaurin
singing
talent show
teenagers
Ben Yakas
Ben Yakas is a former Gothamist reporter.
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Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
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