India Jenkins-Kennedy was on her way to class when a fight broke out.
“I was coming down the stairs and they was waitin' like right there at the bottom of the stairs,” she says. “One girl came up and said ‘So what's the issue? What's the issue’ and just hit me in my face.”
India says she had no choice but to fight back as several girls pulled her hair and punched and kicked her.
This is not the first time she's been the target of violence. Her left eye was cut by another student who jumped her in a bathroom back in November.
India says the school is trapped in a never-ending cycle of group violence.
“When fights break out, it don't be one-on-one no more at that school,” she says.
Because she was forced to fight back in prior attacks-- the school came down harder on India than it did on the girls who attacked her.
“They said its best for me not to come back to that school so just clean out my locker,” she says.
“You basically blaming her and kicking her out the school but the other girls you didn't kick out the school. That's not fair to her,” says her aunt Chafonte Jenkins.
India says she's afraid to go back to a school where even the girl who cut her eye has been allowed to return.
“Somebody's going to end up dead in that school,” she says.
Van Dyke Schools have issued the following statement about the situation:
There was an in-school incident, and appropriate disciplinary action was taken at the school level. The administration acted in accordance with our Student Code of Conduct.
