Beat Up A White Kid Day - 2003 Case

2003 Case

On May 1, 2003, school officials and students at Wilbur Wright Middle School separately notified police that "a large fight" was planned for after school near the intersection of Almira Avenue and West 110th street in Cleveland, Ohio. Initially, it was believed that police arrived as the attack was under way. However, two police cars were there prior to the attack and when school let out, they saw a large group of students walking in the street on West 110th. From their automobiles, the police warned them to walk on the sidewalk.

Some of the students moved to block the police cars as part of the preplanned attack. With the police kept at a distance, a pack of twelve girls and six boys, ages 9 through 15, began to run towards Melissa King, a 13-year-old white girl who was a student at Wilbur Wright and was walking home with two friends. On reaching King, one girl grabbed King's hair from behind and yanked her to the ground. Then the black and Hispanic youths, 17 of whom were students at Wilbur Wright, beat, kicked, and choked her. As they pummeled and scratched at King, the attackers called her "honky," "white trash," and "white bitch." One attacker was overheard saying, "I hit her and got my stomp in."

By the time police broke up the attack, King suffered serious injuries to her head, arms, face, neck, back, and an eye and experienced dizziness and blackouts that required repeated visits to the hospital. When the attackers were asked separately by the police officers why the victim was jumped, each one stated, "It's May Day!" They each went on to explain that May Day "is the day blacks beat on whites" and is known as "beat up a white kid day." Others familiar with the attack said that it wasn't personal, but that it was merely in keeping with the May Day tradition where minority children get a "free shot" at white children simply because of their race. However, defense lawyers and prosecutors both agreed that the attack sprang from a personal vendetta between Melissa and one girl. This girl testified that Melissa had overheard her talking to a school counselor after she was sexually abused and attempted suicide, and claimed that Melissa had spread gossip about this. Within a few days of the attack, Wilbur Wright school responded by suspending five of the eighteen attackers from school for ten days.