The family of a Missouri teen who was arrested for brutally beating 16-year-old Kaylee Gain in a viral street brawl video claimed Thursday that she is the victim of the incident and launched a fundraiser to help support her legal defense.
The 15-year-old’s family claimed to the Daily Mail that Gain had allegedly “harassed and bullied” the teen which led to the shocking outburst. In a video posted online in early March, the 15-year-old and Gain are seen fighting in the middle of a street. After Gain is knocked to the ground, the 15-year-old continues to punch her and repeatedly smashes her head into the concrete street. (RELATED: Teen Arrested After Street Brawl Captured In Graphic Video Leaves Girl In Critical Condition)
GRAPHIC: A student in @HazelwoodSD is in the hospital in critical condition after being brutally beaten with her head smashed against the pavement by a mob of students.
Multiple people watch and do nothing.
You won’t hear about this story on the MSM. https://t.co/dGzr2Kn6HP
— Libs of TikTok (@libsoftiktok) March 10, 2024
While online support has rallied behind Gain, the 15-year-old’s aunt told the Daily Mail that her niece was an honor roll student at Hazelwood East High School, alleging that the girl had been “defending herself” from Gain. The family has since started a petition on Change.org in hopes of urging the St. Louis Juvenile Court to use “a combination of Restorative Justice and Rehabilitation methods” instead of “punitive measures,” as well as urged people to donate to help her legal defense at the time.
“She is multilingual, speaking four languages including Spanish and Korean, plays the violin in the school orchestra, played on her school’s volleyball team and was recently selected for college-level AP classes due to her academic excellence. Prior to an incident on March 8th where she was seen defending herself from harassment and bullying, she had never been in trouble. Her work as a scholar was tainted by the bullying she had to endure at school,” the petition stated.
However, shortly after posting about their requests for financial support on their petition and setting up a GoFundMe on March 16, the fundraiser has since been removed from the site, but not before raising nearly $3,000, according to the Daily Mail. While the fundraiser page had reportedly claimed that the family was being targeted with “racist death threats,” a spokesperson for the site told the outlet that the fundraiser violated their terms of service.
“I can confirm the fundraiser was removed and all donors have been refunded,” a GoFundMe spokesperson told the Daily Mail. “GoFundMe’s Terms of Service explicitly prohibit fundraising for the legal defense of an alleged violent crime.”
The family’s Change.org petition is currently up and has gathered over 630 signatures out of the 1,000 signature goal so far. The family continued to state that while the fight “should’ve never happened” the focus should be for both parties to have “healing and reconciliation.”
“The focus should be to pray for the healing and reconciliation of both parties, as this truly was a teenage fight that should’ve never happened to begin with, but did and spun completely out of control (for reasons that the community at-large should consider and contemplate, as bullying and violence is plaguing many communities across our region and country),” the petition continued.
Since the incident, Gain’s family confirmed to the outlet that she has suffered from a “fractured skull that resulted in brain bleeding and swelling” and has not regained consciousness in 10 days. Gain’s family has reportedly raised over $300,000 for her medical bills, as a statement from her family through their lawyer emphasized their requests to fellow parents.
“Although the family would like justice to eventually be served through the legal system, their focus at this time is dedicated exclusively to Kaylee’s recovery,” Gain’s lawyer told the Daily Mail. “Kaylee’s parents want to make a special request to their fellow parents in the community to ask them to reinforce to their children that physical violence and bullying are never appropriate, and to emphasize to their children that lives of both the perpetrators of teen violence and the victims of violence can be permanently and forever changed as a result of violent incidents that last only a few minutes.”
“Lastly, the family wants to emphasize that they do not want any retaliation of any kind to occur toward anyone that was either directly or indirectly involved in this incident.”