A Virginia highschool track runner who was seen hitting her opponent at the back of the top with a baton last week now faces a misdemeanour charge of assault and battery.
The incident took place when Brookville High School junior Kaelen Tucker was competing within the 4×200-metre relay at a track meet at Liberty University in Lynchburg on March 4.
A video of the incident shared on Facebook shows Tucker grabbing a metal baton from her teammate and taking off. As she begins to overtake one other runner, Alaila Everett of IC Norcom High School appears to lift her own baton and hit Tucker across the top with it, the video shows.
Bethany Harrison, the commonwealth’s lawyer for the town of Lynchburg, confirmed to ABC News that the charge of assault and battery was issued against Everett.
Following the incident, Tucker was assessed by a health care provider and told she had a concussion and a possible skull fracture.
Everett spoke out following the incident, telling outlet WAVY TV 10 that she didn’t mean to hit Tucker and struck her by chance as a result of losing her balance.
“I can admit from the video that it does look purposeful, but I do know my intention is that I’d never hit any person on purpose,” she told the outlet.
Everett claims that individuals are judging the incident “off one angle” of the video.
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“After a pair times of hitting her, my baton got stuck behind her back like this,” Everett said, making an upwards gesture. “And it rolled up her back. I lost my balance and after I pumped my arms again, she got hit.”
Everett revealed that she’s received quite a lot of hate on social media for the reason that video of the incident spread online.
“I’ve never been in a fight, I’ve all the time been on honour roll, I never get calls home. So just people making, off a nine-second video, they’re assuming my character, calling me ‘ghetto,’ racist slurs, death threats, all of this due to a nine-second video,” she said.
The Portsmouth NAACP said it’s reviewing the incident and the “racial slurs and death threats” toward Everett and her family.
“We’re committed collectively to making sure that the criminal justice system, which we feel isn’t warranted in this example, is executed fairly and based on due process,” the organization said in an announcement on Wednesday.
“Alaila is NOT AN ATTACKER and media headlines that allude towards that in any way is shameful,” the Portsmouth NAACP said. “We understand the sensitivity of the circumstances for each athletes and their families involved but this narrative must not go unaddressed.
“Alaila is an honor student and a star athlete on the historic I.C. Norcom High School. From all accounts, she is an exceptional young leader and scholar whose athletic talent has been well documented and recognized across our state. She has carried herself with integrity each on and off the sector and any narrative that adjudicates her guilty of any criminal activity is a violation of her due process rights.”
On Monday, the Tucker family said they reached out to the Virginia High School League (VHSL) and said they were told there was an investigation underway and each high schools were co-operating.
The VHSL also issued an announcement with regard to the incident.
“The VHSL doesn’t comment on individuals or disciplinary actions as a result of FERPA,” the league said. “The actions taken by the meet director to disqualify the runner were appropriate and proper. We thoroughly review every instance like this that involves player safety with the participating schools. The VHSL membership has all the time made it a priority to offer student-athletes with a protected environment for competition.”
When Tucker’s family was asked earlier this week in the event that they planned to press criminal charges, Tucker’s mother, Tamarrow, said, “In fact, everybody gives their opinion on what they think you need to do, but that’s also any person else’s child. I would like to take that into consideration as well. Yes, she definitely struck my daughter greater than once, but she is any person else’s child as well.”
Everett’s family revealed that they were served with court papers since the Tuckers need a protective order.
“It doesn’t seem right that this could occur and now now we have to go to a city three hours away that everybody hates our guts already,” Everett’s father, Genoa, said.
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