Chicago Girl Says that Bullies Set Her Hair on Fire

Michelle Obama has repeatedly spoken about how bullying is a serious problem in America.  Kids are attacked by other kids, and the adults around them may not be taking action to protect them.  Sometimes, the bullying can be dangerous and even deadly, and this case is a sad example.

Tatyana Butler was being bullied every day when she started attending Waukegan’s Thomas Jefferson Middle School. She is a top student, but this only made the bullying worse.   This week, she was mortified by what the bullies tried to do.

On Tuesday, two girls in the eighth grade flicked a lighter behind the girl’s head as she walked to class.   Even though she kept trying to get away, the girls continued to follow her.

“I tried to walk faster but then my head got on fire,” she said. “My friends was like, ‘Tatyana, you hair’s on fire! Your hair’s on fire! and I was like, ‘Are you for real?’ and they just started taking it out.”

The girl said that major clumps of her hair started falling out as a result of the fire.   To her family’s amazement, she was not even allowed to go home.

“They was like, ‘You have to wait. Just write down what happened. I waited … and that’s when [a school official] called my mom,” she said.

Neysha O’Conner, Tatyana’s mother, asked the school to file a police report after the incident.   Unbelievably, the school refused to do so.   That’s when her mother took matters into her own hands and filed the report herself.

“They waited two hours to call me. They didn’t make the report until after told them that I was going to go to the school board and get a lawyer,” O’Connor said. “Then they decide to make a report. I don’t think they handled it well.”

The girls who set Tatyana’s hair on fire were given three-day suspensions.  Of course, her mother is demanding that more be done.  Amazing.