Po­lice are now prob­ing an in­ci­dent in which a 15-year-old, Form Four, Diego Cen­tral Sec­ondary stu­dent was bru­tal­ly beat­en un­con­scious by two Diego Mar­tin North Sec­ondary stu­dents and left on the road­way on Tues­day. A taxi dri­ver saw the un­con­scious teen near Jasper Av­enue around 3 pm and took him to the Diego Mar­tin Health Cen­tre but on the way there, the boy had two epilep­sy at­tacks. He was even­tu­al­ly trans­ferred to the Er­ic Williams Med­ical Sci­ences Com­plex (EWM­SC), Mt Hope.

The vic­tim’s moth­er, Nahi­da Mar­shall, said she re­ceived a call while she was at work and im­me­di­ate­ly rushed to be with her son, not re­al­is­ing what ini­tial­ly brought on the epilep­tic at­tacks.

“At first, when I got the call, they say he got a seizure ... on my way go­ing to the health cen­tre, my daugh­ter called me and told me that they beat up my son and he’s in and out of con­scious­ness. I re­al­ly start­ed to cry be­cause I does work re­al­ly hard for my chil­dren” Mar­shall ex­plained.

The sin­gle moth­er said her son’s fa­ther died four months ago.

Mar­shall said a Mag­net­ic Res­o­nance Imag­ing (MRI) test has since showed he re­ceived no ma­jor in­juries.

Guardian Me­dia un­der­stands the teen was re­cov­er­ing well last evening but was not yet dis­charged.

His moth­er plans on press­ing charges against his at­tack­ers, who have been iden­ti­fied.

“Be­cause the news could have been that my child died be­cause he’s epilep­tic and it’s a se­ri­ous thing and every time he gets a seizure, it dam­ages the brain,” she cried.

Mar­shall said she was con­tact­ed by the po­lice and will make a re­port when her son is dis­charged.

“He is a child­ish per­son but he don’t in­ter­fere with peo­ple ... we as par­ents have to teach our chil­dren the right thing and if it is we don’t, we will end up with all the gun vi­o­lence that they hav­ing now. But I talk to my chil­dren every day and let them know don’t in­ter­fere with peo­ple, if they have a prob­lem, go to the prin­ci­pal, to the teacher,” she said.

Mar­shall urged the par­ents of the stu­dents who beat her son to speak to their chil­dren be­cause it will hurt them if they see their chil­dren ar­rest­ed for mur­der.

“The teacher told me this is not the first time, she said you need to put down your foot and take a stand be­cause they close to ex­pul­sion, so it is some­thing ac­cus­tomed hap­pen­ing and I am not tak­ing it light­ly ... I am press­ing charges,” she said.

Se­nior Su­per­in­ten­dent of the West­ern Di­vi­sion Garvin Hen­ry said they had launched a pre­lim­i­nary in­ves­ti­ga­tion in the mat­ter. He said they had been pay­ing at­ten­tion to Diego Mar­tin North Sec­ondary and put sys­tems in place to pre­vent and de­ter vi­o­lence among the stu­dents, adding there are po­lice pa­trols out­side the school be­fore as­sem­bly and for dis­missal.

Hen­ry added that they have al­so been work­ing with com­mu­ni­ty po­lice.

In 2020, teach­ers at Diego Mar­tin North Sec­ondary were afraid to go to work be­cause of the vi­o­lence and threats di­rect­ed at them and stu­dents at the school.

It was re­port­ed that some of the per­sons per­pe­trat­ing the vi­o­lence were wear­ing uni­forms and were said to be mem­bers of gangs. The oth­ers were re­port­ed­ly not even stu­dents of the school.

Pres­i­dent of the school’s Par­ent Teacher’s As­so­ci­a­tion (PTA) Ly­dia Matthews said yes­ter­day that school was ad­dress­ing the in­ci­dent. How­ev­er, she ad­mit­ted that, un­for­tu­nate­ly, parental in­volve­ment was not where it should be at the school.

“A lot of it is at home stuff, or a com­mu­ni­ty thing,” she said.

She said new prin­ci­pal Su­san Rogers has a hands-on ap­proach with the stu­dents and since her ar­rival, the vi­o­lence on the com­pound had de­creased. Matthews said the school does not pro­mote vi­o­lence but some stu­dents don’t show up with clear men­tal states and they are help­ing them deal with their his­to­ry and back­ground.

Con­tact­ed yes­ter­day, Min­is­ter of Ed­u­ca­tion Dr Nyan Gads­by-Dol­ly said she re­ceived an un­of­fi­cial re­port on the in­ci­dent and will get an of­fi­cial one, along with the of­fend­ing stu­dents’ records to­day.

“These files will con­tain the in­for­ma­tion as pre­sent­ed by the prin­ci­pal and staff of the Stu­dent Sup­port Ser­vices,” she said.

Diego Mar­tin Cen­tral MP Symon de No­bri­ga mean­while said he hoped the at­tack­ers are held ac­count­able for their ac­tions and that the min­istry and school take the nec­es­sary steps to en­sure that hap­pens.