Photo: Ash Wright Instagram
The father ofthe South Carolina fifth-grader who died last weekafter a classroom fight wants answers.
On Monday, Jermaine Van Dyke spoke to reporters about the death of his 10-year-old daughter RaNiya Wright, saying school officials have yet to meet with him to brief him on what happened to her.
“I’m here today looking for justice for my daughter,” Van Dyke said during a brief news conference Monday. “I want just to find out what happened, how it happened, and who was involved.”
RaNiya, a Forest Hills Elementary School student, died at 9:39 a.m. on March 27 at the Medical University of South Carolina — two days after suffering injuries during a fight with another fifth-grade student.
No weapons were involved in the incident, police said.
“This was a physical altercation that took place between two fifth grade students at Forest Hills Elementary,” Colleton County Sheriff’s Office spokesperson Shalane Lowes wrote in an email to PEOPLE.
Lowes said the case is active and no arrests or criminal charges have been made.
However, a student from the Walterboro school has been suspended until the investigation is complete, according to the school district’s press release.
RaNiya with her mother, Ash Wright.GoFundMe
An autopsy was scheduled to be performed Friday, but officials have yet to release those findings.
“We’ve been extremely disappointed,” Mark Peper, an attorney for Raniya’s father, told reporters.
“We’ve made multiple attempts to contact both law enforcement and the school district,” Peper said. “We heard late Friday evening from the attorney for the school district that was brought on board. Unfortunately, he didn’t have many answers.”
Peper also said fighting was a regular occurrence inside RaNiya’s classroom,according to ABC4.
“It’s been made pretty clear to us that there’s been a pattern of behavior over the last 4 or 5 years,” said Peper, who stopped short of labeling the behavior bullying.
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“It would be fair to say that the school was on notice that there were some altercations occurring on a very regular basis between individuals in this specific classroom,” Peper said,reports the station.
A GoFundMe accounthas been established to raise money for medical and funeral expenses to help RaNiya’s family. As of this writing, it has raised more than $54,000.
source: people.com
