Bowers claimed earlier this week that she was beaten and threatened with violence and rape by a group of students at Athens ISD last Friday, for creating a protest sign saying, "If you love our nation, stop illegal immigration."
After Melanie's accusations, administrators reviewed school survellience videotape of the incident - which, instead of showing students beating or attacking her, showed Bowers scratching herself on her arms, face, and neck, and walking through the halls of the school calmly long after she claimed the incident happened.
What’s even more horrendous is KLTV’s original reportage. First, the headline:
East Texas Teenager Attacked Over History Project
Whatever happened to “allegedly”?
Then, the story itself:
It was an assignment for history class--to make a protest sign for or against an issue, and Melanie said she chose illegal immigration. Her sign read, "If you love our nation, stop illegal immigration." Somehow, Melanie said the sign got passed around lunch and angered a group of Latino students.
"I didn't know any of these people," she said. One young, she claimed, jumped on her back and he put her in a choke hold. "We have brick walls in the middle school and he slammed my face on the bricks."
Melanie said a group of boys also threatened to rape and kill her. Eventually, the boys let her go and when she went for help, she was ordered back to class, and told she could not call her parents, she said.
"They handled this wrong, you know, they put a child back in danger," said J.R. Bowers. "It was a very racially motivated crime."
It looks like little Melanie and her parents need to have a long chat with their Hispanic neighbors, and it looks like someone needs to apologize. The girl’s parents have apologized to the school, but has anyone apologized to the Latino community?
Indeed, one Hispanic student was sent to detention for no reason:
"They were passing the sign around at school. I saw it. I just got up to ask her about it. Nothing else, nothing more," said Gaby. "They placed me in ISS because they accused me of hitting her, scratching her and threatening her, when I didn't do that. I didn't touch her. I didn't do anything to her. To me they put me in ISS for something I didn't do."
Gaby's mother didn't speak much English, but said through an interpreter she is humiliated and thinks her daughter was targeted because of her race.
"She's very upset that the little girl lied, you know?. Being the fact that she's Hispanic, what the sign said - it's very offensive to Mexican people."
Hispanic students were wrongfully accused, KLTV reporter Molly Reuter’s original story presented the accusations as fact, and now we have what appears to be a troubled young teen who needs to learn a lesson in "racially motivated crime."
(h/t, Avedon)
[UPDATE]:
You know who else needs to apologize? Michelle Malkin:
"... the open-borders mob reaction to one girl’s project is absolutely unacceptable...."
Uh, yeah.
