Two high school students in Michigan gave very different accounts of what led to a fight that went viral on social media and drew the attention of their local community.
Kamaria Rogers-Brown, a student at Lee High School in Wyoming, Michigan, recently told WZZM13 that the altercation with her classmate Gabriela earlier this month happened after other students showed her texts the girl wrote calling Kamaria the n-word and expressing wishes to fight her.
According to Kamaria, Gabriela was “going around saying the n*****, just calling me a n***** at that, so I confronted her about it in class.”
Shortly after the confrontation, Kamaria said Gabriela approached her in the bathroom to apologize for using the slurs. Later on, Kamaria claims she was approached by other students who showed her more texts that included more uses of the slur, pictures of Kamaria, and desires to fight Kamaria after school, all allegedly written by Gabriela.
Kamaria says she later approached Gabriela during lunch asking why she bothered apologizing if she was still using the slur and threatening to fight her.
“That’s when the whole fight started,” Kamaria said.
Kamaria said she wanted to speak out to set the record straight after Gabriela told local news stations that she was brutalized for no reason.
Gabriela said the fight happened after Kamaria approached her about rumors that she was bad-mouthing her. When she denied the allegations, she said Kamaria began threatening to fight her.
The teacher reportedly got involved and tried to send the pair to the office for mediation, but Gabriela said Kamaria was uncooperative, so they were separated in class to prevent further confrontation.
However, during their lunch period, Kamaria asked to see Gabriela in the hallway where the altercation turned violent.
“And then that’s when she grabbed my hair, and then she slapped me to the ground,” Gabriela said.
Cellphone video of the fight apparently shows Kamaria grabbing Gabriela, throwing her to the ground, and punching her repeatedly for 30 seconds before a teacher intervenes.
Gabriela’s mother said her daughter was beaten so severely, she had to be taken to a local hospital to be treated for a concussion and bruises to her face.
“I understand what the pictures look like. I understand what the video looked like. I understand that it shouldn’t have got that far.” Kamaria’s mother Keaira Duren said.
Duren said her daughter is a good student who has never gotten into trouble at school, but now she’s being painted as a troublemaker online.
“On social media, my daughter is looking like she is an aggressor like she is a monster, and she is the complete opposite of that,” Duren said.
“Waking up, get on your phone and seeing everyone call you names and blaming you for it. They don’t ever know how to like the real story,” Kamaria said. “They’re just one-sided. The whole story is one-sided. No one, not once ever came to me, well, asked me, ‘what’s your side of the story?’”
Kamaria stated that she only resorted to fighting because she felt like she tried every other option to resolve the situation.
“Once I asked her nicely and multiple times not to call me that she continued to call me so, like, dang. Like, Am I just supposed to sit here? Am I supposed to do anything about this? Like, what am I supposed to do?” Kamaria said. “I feel like I handled it in the best way that was possible. It’s like, I’m telling you to stop. You’re not stopping. And basically how I felt, I just felt really targeted.”
Both girls’ parents stated they felt the school should have done more to try to resolve the conflict before it escalated.
“I feel that this could have been prevented if the teacher would have taken the correct initial steps to kind of prevent this from happening,” Gabriela’s mother Amanda Coronado said.
“I basically ended up telling them it wouldn’t have got that far if somebody had sent both girls to mediate the situation,” Duren said.
The school initially released a statement about the Dec. 16 fight saying, “The Wyoming Police Department has a school resource officer at Godfrey-Lee Schools, and we work diligently through this partnership with Godfrey-Lee Public Schools to provide a safe learning environment for students and staff.”
Now, the dispute is involving law enforcement and could lead to assault charges.
Gabriela’s mother stated that a school officer requested phone records to track down messages where Gabriela might have used slurs or made threats of violence, but did not find anything to corroborate the harassment claims.
Coronado stated that she spoke with the Kent County Prosecutor’s Office and reported they are seeking aggravated assault charges against Kamaria.
“At this point we just have to wait and let the courts determine what is true and false and see what the outcome is in court,” Coronado stated. “No, violence is not OK nor is racial slurs. We have to state facts and based on the police report, teachers statements, and video footage are facts. Not hear say.”
Duren acknowledged the fight was wrong, but doesn’t believe the conflict should involve the courts.
“For a kid who … she never been in trouble, don’t have no record … she’s quiet, she don’t bother nobody. Now she got to face charges,” Duren said. “I don’t even feel like she ready for that. I don’t feel like she ready for court. … I really don’t and I feel like it’s going to be more traumatizing to the mental state that she in. … I just want to protect her.”
