WLBT 3 - Jackson, MS: 3OYS: Student beaten up in Terry High classroom

3OYS: Student beaten up in Terry High classroom

By Julie Straw - bio | email

Terry, MS (WLBT) - A mother is speaking out after her son is beaten up in a Terry High School classroom. 

"His lip was hanging.  He had three stitches in his lip.  He was kicked in the groin.  He went unconscious in the classroom," said Cynthia Rollins.  She is the mother of 14-year-old T.J. Sutton.

Bruised and swollen, that is what Sutton looked like after he was punched and kicked repeatedly by another male student at Terry High School.  Rollins has a letter from the science teacher who witnessed the beating.  The teacher describes how the boys were throwing water at one another.  She told them to stop.  Then the student began attacking Sutton.

"T.J., my son, was bleeding.  She said she pleaded for them to stop and she said (unnamed other student) would not stop," read Rollins.

Rollins says both boys were suspended.  Sutton was suspended for five days and his attacker was suspended for ten days.  Then she was slapped with more than $2,000 in medical bills.

"I would just like to see justice served.  First of all I would like to see these medical bills paid because I'm not going to pay them," said Rollins.

According to the Hinds County School District Student Handbook, the student is required to pay "total restitution for any injury to others requiring medical attention."

Rollins says the school will not release the names of the boy's parents.  Instead they turned the matter over to Hinds County Juvenile Justice Court.  The principle also informed Rollins her son would be placed back into the classroom with the same boy.

"I said what other safety precautions have you made?  He said we're going to have an officer on the ground.  I told him that there was an officer there when my son was beaten down like a dog so I decided to remove my child from the school," said Rollins.

Sutton is now at Christ Missionary Industrial College in Jackson.  We contacted Hinds County School District Superintendent Dr. Stephen Handley for comment.  He said he could not discuss disciplinary issues.