An 8-year old New Hampshire boy suffered rope burns around his neck and had to be flown to Dartmouth- HitchC0ck Medical Center after a 14-year old hanged him from a tree.
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The boy’s mother, Cassandra Merlin, took to Facebook to share a photo of her child’s neck following the horrific attack.
Although the boy is bi-racial, neither his mum nor his uncle, Lyrik Martin believe the heinous act was racially motivated. Ms Merlin wrote on Facebook: “So my son is being flown to Dartmouth after a 14 year old kid decided to hang him from a tree. I don’t care if this was a so called accident or not.
My son almost died because of some little sh** teenage kids.” However, the boy’s grandmother, Lorrey Slattery feels the act was “intentional”. Slattery was able to figure out what happened to her son through the help of the child’s 11-year old sister. According to Slattery, the kids were playing in the yard on that fateful day in August when someone called her grandson “racial epithets” and threw sticks and rocks at his legs.
The situation escalated when the kids stepped up on a picnic table and grabbed a nearby rope that had been part of a tire swing.
According to Slattery, “The adolescents said, ‘Look at this,’ supposedly putting the rope around their necks. One boy said to (her grandson), ‘Let’s do this,’ and then pushed him off the picnic table and hung him.”
The boy swung back and forth by his neck three times before he was able to remove the rope. While this happened, Slattery said none of the teenagers came to his aid. What is even more disturbing is the authorities’ intentional regard for the assailants.
Claremont Police Chief Mark Chase refused to comment on the incident other than confirming there was an incident. Law enforcement is citing confidentiality laws that protect juveniles Chase stated. “Mistakes they make as a young child should not have to follow them for the rest of their life.”?????? People feel the chief seems more concerned about the well-being of the teenagers that did the lynching than of the child lynched.
Angela Helm of The Root condemned the action of the chief in a post on The Root website. Ms Helm wrote: “Notice how he called these predators “young children,” infantilizing the white teens. Conversely, teens like Trayvon Martin are made out to be hulking, menacing adults.
Chase seems to be centering the perpetrators’ feelings and futures, all but forgetting about the trauma of a little boy who had his so-called friends hang him from a tree to the point where he had to be medevaced to a hospital.”
