Tacoma father considering lawsuit after daughter attacked by student at Baker Middle School

TACOMA — A male student was caught on camera beating a teenage classmate inside a school hallway. Now the victim’s father is calling for action.

The assault happened eight days ago in the hallway at Baker Middle School.

Jamar Pollard says Tacoma school officials took too long to stop the beating and didn’t provide adequate medical care for his daughter.

He ended up taking her to the hospital.

Pollard said all the school did was to have the school nurse look at his daughter, but what happened at Baker Middle School warranted calling for medics and police.

“She had a concussion; she had deep bruising all on the left side of her face. Her eye was half swollen shut,” said Pollard.

Pollard says his 14-year-old daughter was left battered and bruised by a vicious attack at the school, allegedly instigated by a teenager more than twice her size.

Despite that, he says, no outside authorities were called.

“You can’t see in that partial video,” he said, “but she was slammed against the wall multiple times, and slammed on the ground, kicked in the head. With that kind of head trauma, I would think that an ambulance would be called, too. It wasn’t.”

Neither were the Tacoma police.

“No, they didn’t call the police,” he said. “I had to do that.”

More troubling still, he says the district knew the teen was a danger.

“Other school faculty here have told me that the boy has had other encounters, violent encounters, encounters with females,” Pollard said. “And he’s still attending the school.”

Tacoma School officials said in a statement they can say little to respect both teens’ privacy but that violence is not tolerated.

“Staff responded immediately to intervene, within seconds of the incident,” the statement added, “The student involved quickly received medical attention and steps were taken to deescalate.”

“So, within seconds is two, three, four, five seconds,” said Pollard. “The video you see is 15 seconds and the assault lasted longer than that video.”

Pollard says the district’s response all round has been inadequate.

“I don’t know what they’re thinking with that statement,” said Pollard, shaking his head. “That’s crazy.”

Pollard says school officials did finally tell him that the student has been expelled and is no longer in the school.

He doesn’t believe they would have acted if he hadn’t spoken up.

Now he is considering suing.

Tacoma police are investigating this as an assault case.

And they could recommend charges against that teen.

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