FARMINGTON HILLS, Mich. (WXYZ) — Police are investigating after a West Bloomfield high school basketball player was badly beaten by a group of boys during a school athletic event.
Cell phone video shows 17-year-old Kenede Marion being dragged to the ground while taking punches and kicks to the head and torso on Jan. 10, just after playing a basketball game against North Farmington High School.
The violence landed him in intensive care with a lacerated liver and spleen and fractured vertebrae. But Kenya Marion says it's just the latest in a string of harassment and assault incidents against her son.
Before transferring him to West Bloomfield High, the teen was a student at North Farmington High where Marion says he suffered several unprovoked attacks by a group of three boys.
The situation grew so severe that Marion got a restraining order against one of the three boys, a protective order that was violated on the night the assault took place.
But despite her best efforts, including conversations requesting more intervention by the Farmington school district and transferring her son from the school, she says the system failed her son, a national honor society student with aspirations of playing college basketball.
And she's furious over what she calls a lack of attention to a serious harassment problem, arguing there should have been some safety parameters put in place to prevent the attack from happening.
In a statement to 7 Action News, a representative for the district said of the incident:
"We have conducted interviews of alleged participants and witnesses, and are in the process of reviewing videotape evidence of the incident along with our partners in law enforcement...We do not tolerate threats, intimidation, harassment, bullying, or acts of violence on school grounds, near a school facility, or at athletic events."
Farmington Hills police are investigating and plan to hand the case over to prosecutors.
