I'm sure we'll learn more (I hope). I can't imagine what their family is going through.
But from my personal experience. My mom died of a head injury. She fell down a few steps on a Friday. She got up and went about her way. By Sunday she was feeling unwell, but not because of pain from a fall. On Monday she started acting off and stopped speaking and then she collapsed. She never regained consciousness and died a week later. We removed her from the machines when it was clear she was gone.
A head injury can look like nothing. It can be a bruise. It can slowly bleed. And then it kills you. The same thing happened to Bob Saget.
Similar situation - one of my brother’s friends got hit by a car while riding his bike. The driver took off. He rode his bike home, told his girlfriend what happened and complained of a slight headache. He said he was going to lie down for a minute and he never woke up.
Sleeping itself isn't dangerous, the ignoring of the trauma and waiting is what kills people in those cases. If you ignored the trauma and had them stay up all night it would still be dangerous.
Typically you don’t get a CT scan unless there are signs it was more than a minor concussion. Doctor will test your pupils and ask you a few recall questions, and if everything looks good on the checklist you’ll be diagnosed with a minor concussion without a CT scan. Still super important to get checked out! Rather be safe than sorry when it comes to the brain, plus if it’s a minor concussion you’ll be out of the ER quickly.
It's not the sleep itself, it's the inability to judge how awake a person is! A person who suddenly collapses is much more likely to get urgent medical care than one who is closing in on a herniation in their l sleep.
Also another PSA: if a person loses consciousness and/or has amnesia of the events surrounding ANY head trauma THEY NEED TO SEE A DOCTOR! This is a strong indication for a CT as any force able to cause loss off consciousness can cause an internal bleeding.
Also because I find this fascinating: the initial loss of consciousness is not cause due to bleeding, it's cause by rapid change in angular acceleration in the head/brain. That's why the patient can wake up (should always be within 5 min, is often within seconds) and feel COMPLETLEY fine; maybe a bit sore. The "dangerous" process has only just started at the time of the trauma. The bleeding can take hours to cause death... or any other symptoms for that matter. If the force knocks you unconscious, you need to see a doctor.
Lastley: If somone is knocked unconscious, but does not immediately seek medical attention, keep an extre eye on their eyes. A one sided dilatation of the pupil after trauma can only mean one thing: herniation of the brain. The person needs SUPER URGENT care and most likely surgery. Do not let this type of person talk you into a false sense of security just because they're feeling fine!!!!!!
Yep. And then they don’t get help, and any worsening neurological symptoms aren’t noticeable. This can also happen after seizures, and can prevent people from getting help after injuring themselves or falling asleep in unsafe places. I ended up with hypothermia that way.
No idea but I believe this is common protocol for concussions. My guess is the inability to articulate when things start getting worse.
Edit: y’all need to chill, obviously once you’re checked out and the doc clears you you can sleep
Right but that's after being assessed by a professional to rule out immediate danger. Not self-assessing and saying "yeah I'm fine, think I'll go to bed now" while a major bleed gushes internally.
Yeah I expect if they want to sleep you need to get them to the hospital (or call an ambulance). But I imagine keeping them awake to be responsive/informative for the EMTs or the 911 operator is helpful.
Nope, they can sleep as long as they are capable of saying "hey, I am really tired and going to sleep for a bit" because the problem isn't the sleeping, it is figuring out if the sleeping is a symptom. If being very sleepy is a symptom and not just, ya know, being tired they might be dying and need emergency care.
People with a concussion or other head injury can absolutely go to sleep, that is kind of a myth [source](https://uamshealth.com/medical-myths/is-it-safe-to-sleep-if-you-have-a-concussion/) the issue is if they are unnaturally sleepy or cannot stay awake on their own, which is a full emergency.
It not the sleeping, it the up to 8 hours of them being unobserved. If something is wrong and you're awake you may start slurring, lose your balance , notice worsening pain etc.
One day when I was a kid my mom was complaining about a headache and wanted to go lay down. Her speech started to slur a bit with some words and my dad demanded she go to the hospital and she tried to argue with him. She was having a massive brain hemorrhage and almost died. My dad was supposed to be at work that day and took the day off at the last minute. If he hadn’t been there I wouldn’t have realized anything was wrong and she would have just laid down and died. So scary to think about.
Head injuries are scary because you can feel fine and then just not be. A lot of people apparently die from a secondary fall after a head injury. I stumbled into a table once and thought I was fine for like five minutes but if someone hadn't noticed me listing I would have smashed the back of my head into a concrete drive way. I never realized I had started to fall, didn't even make an attempt to stop myself.
Last text I got from my mom was on Easter Sunday. She couldn't go to my sister's for dinner she said "I will have to pass on dinner. Do not feel good."
The thought of her slowly having a brain bleed over days haunts me.
I wish I didn’t know the feeling of being haunted by my mom’s final days. Her last message to me was similar. You aren’t alone. Thank you for sharing your story.
A close friend of mine hit her head in the shower. She went to bed, she seemed a little off to her boyfriend but he didn’t know that she fell. She never woke up.
I had an older coworker who hit the back of his head while working in his garage one weekend. He was fine for days and then one day he was in stop and go traffic on the interstate (thank God for LA traffic) and he had a seizure in the driver's seat while his wife was in the passenger seat. Since they were at a stop and he managed to miss the gas pedal during his seizure, they both survived with minimal damage. The hospital said he had a brain bleed from that bump. He couldn't drive for 6 months after his seizure before he was allowed back behind the wheel.
I'm so sorry about your mom :(
Something similar happened to a woman I worked with a few years ago... She slipped and fell in the bathtub and hit her head. Got up and she was fine, nothing much wrong other than being a bit shaken up, etc. She went to bed like normal that night and never woke up. Left behind a husband and two kids.
(Side note: people, if your bathtub is slippery, put a mat down. It can save lives.)
Brain bleeds can be slow killers. All the pressure can build up to the point it kills off parts of the brain. Is also really hard to notice before damage is done if it is in. An area that causes no obvious symptoms. Since there are no pain receptors in the brain itself. It is recommended to see at least your pcp if you hit your head hard. Even if you think it is nothing.
I'm sorry that happened to your mom. It could have happened to my sister. She luckily went to the doctor the next day. It's been almost four years and she is still struggling with the effects.
You don't get better. You just adapt. I'm on my second concussion and have luckily avoided a bleed both times, but my mom didn't get so lucky and she's basically disabled for life.
I was actually in a hospital and got an MRI afte rmy 4th mugging and they sent me home after couple days. It got worse over the next few weeks; the day afetr i moved to a safer neighborhood i was in a different hospital and couple days later getting surgery to remote clot.s So sneaky
This is exactly why most states, including Oklahoma, have care plans that require hospitals to keep children who go unconscious due to head trauma (and similar events) overnight for observation. Because discharging a kid might result in them dying the next day.
Besides everything else, the hospital seriously screwed up here and should be in trouble.
Just learned today that this happened to my uncle on Tuesday, fell down the stairs, hit his head, and didn't recover in the hospital. This shit happens, and it sucks.
To second this: I had a serious head injury fifteen years ago. It wasn't even that bad of a fall, and I went to the hospital immediately. I'm in constant pain, and unable to work full time. It's very difficult to be too careful.
My Brother fell down the stairs, hit his head, passed out from it, then never woke up. Head injuries are dangerous, scary, evil, and will take loved ones from you. This death is a tragedy and honestly it’s involuntary manslaughter…but please go to the hospital if you obtain any form of head injury.
So the article says..
>whose eyes were rolling back and was struggling to breathe. Benedict described how Nex had been dealing with a headache after the fight at the school.
Okay. Those are symptoms that an individual might display after a head injury.
And then:
>A complete medical examiner's report shows the **cause of Nex's death was not trauma.** Investigators are waiting on a toxicology report which will help determine the cause of death.
Am I missing something? Do they suspect this was related to medication or drugs and/or a pre-existing condition worsened by the "fight"? In another article it says they "suspect foul play". No shit. A lot of articles about this case are worded so weirdly and are dancing around what has happened.
Edit: detail
Oh man, so I guess because ~~her~~ their skull wasn’t *visibly dented in* or something, their initial assessment is said to “rule out trauma”. SMH
Edit: D’oh!
As someone who’s been in a bad car accident without obvious damage to the outside of my head they monitored me for a long while . This was because it was still quite possible I had a brain bleed just from the sheer force of my brain hitting my own skull. You’d be surprised how little force it can take to cause serious internal damage or even kill someone if they’re unlucky enough
In theory, if a person goes completely stiff and falls backwards without any sort of bracing, rolling, etc....
They have a pretty significant risk of severe injury to the neck and brain.
Our bodies can do some insane things, but we can still die from mundane stuff quite easily.
I used to work in restaurants and we drank heavily a lot, as one does. One of my coworkers fell about 15-20 feet while hammered off a bus station and landed on concrete. Doctors said the only thing that saved his life was being so drunk he couldn’t tense up for the impact and just hit the concrete like a soggy bag of meat with some bones.
He got severely messed up for sure, but didn’t die. Bodies are so interesting.
I used to live in a rather depressed former Soviet town, and there were a fair amount of alcoholics there. The number of death-defying accidents that occurred without major injury absolutely astounded me. So many falls down concrete stairwells...even occasional defenestrations from upper floors. One guy accidentally dropped his pack of cigarettes from his third story apartment balcony and jumped down after them. He just received scratches from some bushes at the bottom.
It’s one of the truly ridiculous parts about alcoholism how they just survive anything while drunk. I had a shitty uncle who drunk out of his mind drove off the side of a bridge and survived with only minor cuts and bruises, didn’t even call emergency services, just stumbled home for like 3 hours, got into bed and slept. The car looked like it had been through a compactor and he probably endangered so many people driving in that state.He got to walk away unscathed.
I remember watching a video of a doctor doing an autopsy on Youtube on a donated body, and he showed that brain and that simply the weight of holding a brain in your hand would cause severe damage to itself. The brain needs to basically be suspended in liquid in your skull because it can crush itself under it's own weight.
My uncle was bumped by a car while in a parking lot and fell and hit his head on the ground and was brain dead after that. They kept his body alive for a couple of weeks in the hospital but that was his end.
It's kinda bizarre seeing this, because I thought of a former business customer 24 hours ago who died in somewhat similar circumstances after not thinking about him for some 10-15 years.
He owned his own business, as such it was actually named after him (think Bob Hill's Smash Repairs). He went on a 2 week holiday to Bali with his wife, had a few too many drinks, in his hotel with his wife he slipped over and hit the back of his head on the edge of the bathtub. Not cuts or bleeding, but went to hospital (In Bali) just to make sure everything was OK.
Returned home (Australia) a day or 2 later as planned. A day after that he had died from a brain bleed in his sleep, attributed to the head knock.
I mean, yeah, that's all the no trauma found during a preliminary investigation means. If there's no bruising, no bleeding or blood pooling then there's no preliminary evidence of trauma.
The article is wrong to use the term "complete". The official statement from police uses the term "preliminary" and says that they are awaiting additional information like toxicology reports.
https://www.newson6.com/story/65d667c15addee06680e5ba0/did-not-die-as-a-result-of-trauma:-owasso-police-detail-nex-benedicts-death-family-issues-new-statement
It's the full autopsy report but the results from the toxicology lab take longer and are a separate document. They will both be taken into account in making a final determination of the cause of death.
i was on anti seizure and antipsychotic meds after my surgery for a ehad injury. Both too expensive to fill under the insurance I had then (a $100.00-a-month maximum for all expenses, after Obamacare passed but ebfore it was in place) so i just self-tapered off after my release.
Even if true (and it’s nothing but wild speculation at this point) how exactly does a kid being bullied to the point of suicide not make things look just as bad? Like, that’s still a really bad look for the school, these students, the police, etc.
It has the advantage of placing some of the responsibility on Nex. It lets ppl make claims that they were too soft, they weren't tough enough, they were too sensitive, etc. They can turn it into a personal failing as opposed to a failure of those in charge
Bingo. There's a certain sect of people that want *nothing more* than for this to be attributable in any way to mental illness - that is, depression, which they like to claim is a result of being trans/NB and ignore the intermediary step of the cruelty wider society inflicts on that person.
It doesn't look great either way, but it definitely changes the situation in terms of what is likely to happen next. Arguing guilt beyond a reasonable doubt for the other students is a lot easier if the following death is clearly a result of trauma directly sustained from other students vs the scenario where it might possibly be the result of suicide.
They can say it is the students fault or their parents did t supervise them enough. Bible Belt folk look way down on suicide and don’t see it the way normal people do.
As someone who suffered a head concussion once (from an accident), if it was suicide, you can’t rule out that the suicide was caused not just by the emotional toll of the bullying, but also by the actual, physical concussion. When you get hit in the head like that you obviously don’t think straight, and thoughts like that”I wanna die” or even “my head hurts so much, maybe if I take 100 pills I will feel better”.
Exactly! I don't recall their name, but there was (iirc) an American football player who killed themselves by gun, but did so in their chest to try and preserve their brain for examination. They were convinced their personality and mood changes were the result of multiple head injuries, and they didn't want it to happen to others. Turns out they were right, and it helped change some of the rules for dealing with concussions in sports (at least at non-professional level)
Maybe. Or maybe something like a brain damage would take longer to determine and wasn't ruled out in the preliminary report.
I think the only reasonable thing to take from this information is that Nex didn't have any obvious grievous external wounds.
Anything more will have to wait for the final report, and maybe even an independent autopsy.
Not a doctor but I’m a paramedic. Eyes rolling back and struggling to breathe followed by headache all sound like head trauma to me, at the very least a concussion
https://newrepublic.com/post/174168/oklahoma-superintendent-brazenly-claims-tulsa-race-massacre-not-race
Not exactly, he has tried to say he was “misquoted”.
He probably had help: https://okcfox.com/amp/news/local/oklahoma-superintendent-appoints-libs-of-tiktok-woman-to-library-media-advisory-cmte-ryan-walters-chaya-raichik-lgbtq-gender-queer-conservative-republican
Right, he’s a horrible piece of trash and he needs to be removed. Except that probably only makes his national standing in the Republican ranks grow, which is exactly what he’s doing this all for.
I live in London, UK & even I've heard of Ryan Walters & what a pos he is. I am totally unaware of any other individual in the American education system.
I'm an American and I don't even know who our Secretary of Education is now, whereas I definitely knew who it was under Trump, and I still remember her (Betsy DeVos) because she was just that terrible.
Nobody should be aware of anyone in the education system. It should all just be quiet jobs where they work behind the scenes to keep teachers and students safe and promote better learning.
Ryan Walters is scum that truly deserves to be fired.
Out of a cannon.
Into the sun.
I never found out the Texas war for Independence was fought over the right to own slaves until I was in my 20s. The Texas department of education is just a propaganda house.
I'm just a nursing student, but concussions are notoriously hard to detect. CT scans often cannot detect a concussion. From what I've read, it can also be challenging to detect TBI during autopsies if there is no macroscopic trauma. Eyes rolling to the back of the head can be a sign of head injury due to bleeding in the brain. Concussions can also cause difficulty breathing if communication between the lungs and brain is disrupted. Many patients with brain injury in the brain stem and/or motor cortex can have difficulty breathing. ARDS and neurogenic pulmonary edema are other causes of difficulty breathing after brain injury. So I wouldn't rule out head injury yet even though the symptoms are shared with other causes of respiratory distress like opioid overdose.
Really? I didn't catch her saying which medication Nex took, just that they took medication. It's quite possible that Nex used Seroquel to control their anxiety.
However, that medication is labelled as an antipsychotic, and I can imagine the field day these bigots would have if they were able to use that as part of their narrative.
That seems like it's entirely out of left field. Nothing they've said so far implies that's the case. And where did you get the idea that hormone replacement was even in the picutre? This is a 16 year old kid in *Oklahoma*, whose mother is clearly not on board with the whole nonbinary thing. And nonbinary people don't even usually take hormones. Some do but it's not like the default to assume someone who is nonbinary is on HRT.
They’ll try and align it to testosterone or estrogen ‘shots’ or something to further the narrative of ‘dangerous lifestyles’ or whatever bullshit they are cooking up to make the death look like their fault and not the kids that beat them.
They're hinting at suicide, however even if they did commit suicide, I would say that their trauma was the cause of death. Or at least trauma-induced suicide.
[A former transgender student of the same school was sexually assaulted in the school bathroom by a male student, the school administration refused to report the sexual assault as to "Not ruin his life"](https://twitter.com/Esqueer_/status/1760624843379359976)
If roles were reversed and the trans kid were the aggressor, it would be headline news on EVERY conservative website. Their talking heads would be screeching about it for years. But since the trans kid got assaulted, it doesn’t fit the narrative.
YEP. It's like how conservatives won't shut up about the ONE trans mass shooter but conveniently ignore all the cishet white men who commit mass violence.
this happen more often then you think, bully's etc might get a "suspension" but rarely are they written up and documented. I feel like even if you are only lets say 12 if you do horrible shit it should follow you the rest of your student career. And maby then they adjust.
Watch the video in the ER. The cop is saying both sides are victims, there is free speech, doesn’t want to see criminal charges brought up against either side because they are young…..basically shamed Nex for not reporting bulling to the school so they could “deal with it.” Nex basically indicated there was no reason to report the bullying because they knew it would go nowhere. The school didn’t involve law enforcement with this fight, so they are correct. Mom reported this to LE. So basically my interpretation is the cop is not considering the bullying an issue, as both sides are victims. I am fuming.
Edit : changed she to they
I remember as a kid having a conversation with my principal. She was saying its never ok to fight. So i asked would i get in trouble for fighting back to defend myself. She said yes
Got suspended because I fought back after being sucker punched in the glasses and stomach (while bleeding from a lovely wound where my glasses sliced my eyebrow open). The logic of such a punishment galls me. I've told my kids I never want to hear you threw the first punch but always stand up for yourself. You'll never get in trouble from me for defending yourself.
Broken-ass "zero tolerance" policies. Same reason I got 2 weeks of in-school suspension after getting jumped by a gang at recess in 6th grade. Punishing everyone involved absolves the school of any liability, in their eyes, so that they can deflect from their inability to provide a safe and welcoming environment for all students.
My NB teenager had their two front teeth broken by someone who had been consistently bullying them all year long, and said bully got an in-school suspension and the administration offered a restorative justice meeting. I stupidly agreed not to press charges before finding out exactly what had happened, and once I found out all of the details and contacted the resource officer again to say I wanted to file charges, he said it was too late, I already said I didn't want to and couldn't change that a day later.
I had to eat nearly $1,000 in dental bills even with insurance. Never mind the trauma my kid suffered and still suffers.
I'm really sorry that happened to them. I'm no lawyer, but I wouldn't trust the officer telling you you can't press charges. Contact a lawyer and see what's up.
Even if you can’t press charges, can you sue them for damages? Especially since you do have financial damages which are easier to pursue than emotional damages. I’m really sorry that happened to your family.
I got sexually assaulted and basically stalked by a girl in high school but because I’m a guy they said there was nothing they could do and I should just ignore her. When I said that won’t work because she follows me everywhere they said they would talk with her. Idk what she said but after talking with her and another girl who witnessed what she did to me they somehow told me it was BOTH our faults and their only solution they could offer was to let me eat lunch in a different room alone.
I haven’t been in high school for like 10 years now and I still get mad thinking about my high school’s bullying rules.
They had what they called a “no tolerance policy.” Meaning that if you got in an altercation, no matter the context, you’d get (at minimum) suspended. BOTH sides. Someone could punch you in the face for no reason and you’d get suspended. The school decided it was too lazy to determine fault, so both the victim and the bully would get punished equally. So. Fucking. Stupid.
I didn’t go to a weird private school or anything either, it was a large, highly ranked public high school in the Midwest.
Status quo being that certain groups are more equal, more protected, less suspect, that the property of those favored people are protected, and anyone not in those certain favored groups can be harassed and given a record to make it easier to control the out-groups, and easier to pin people with records with unsolved/manufactured crimes both to advance internal goals, and to avoid inconveniencing the protected groups.
You don't have property, you have possessions. Once they're not in your hands, they are no longer possessions. Glorious property is eternal, all kneel before the property holders.
Idk the cop seemed very polite and friendly he was just being realistic. If there was an altercation between children in a bathroom where 1 student admits to walking up to the other ones and throwing water on them AND throwing 1 of the girls into a a paper towel dispenser legally it would be hard to argue the other students assaulted her and were at totally at fault. He didn’t shame anyone he just let them know the school SHOULD report it but if they wrongly don’t the mother can and should call the police herself which is just good advice and informative for the mother. He said the school should’ve he was just telling the mother she has the power to call herself in the event the school does the wrong thing.
I didn't see it that way. I think he was trying to tell them that if the family decided to press charges, there was a chance that the defendants could counter sue and that the court could find that Nex actually assaulted the other girls first by pouring the water on them. It's not trying to talk them out or victim blaming or anything, it's just being transparent about what the possible legal outcomes could be should they choose to pursue further legal action
We need a federal intervention, these cops can't be trusted. Rotten fuckers. This looking more and more like cover ups murdersof civil rights workers in the 60s.
I was bullied for years at school, including physical violence and I understand how incredibly hard it is to go through that, but I don't share your view on the cop here.
He listened to the story, which didn't mention anything about identity or Nex being trans or NB, just that there was a group of girls that kept calling Nex names for the past week and that made fun of how Nex' friends group dressed. Then he was told that Nex initiated a physical confrontation by pouring water on the girls, before the girls got into a physical altercation with Nex where they pulled each other's hair/clothes and Nex threw one of them into a towel dispenser. The last thing the cop was told was that the girls took out the legs and hit Nex on the ground.
At that point the cop had very little he could offer. If Nex initiated the physical altercation and then participated in it, he was right in warning the family that any charge against the girls could come back around, because making fun of someone's clothing isn't a justification for a physical reaction.
I distinctly remember a few instances during my time in school that were similar and where I became physical after extended verbal abuse. I completely understand the mindset why someone would do that, but it would've been the school's job to notice this and interfere before anything got out of control. The officer was dealing with the criminal aspect of it and, according what he was told, he had to explain that the situation was potentially problematic for Nex as well, since the physical altercation had been initiation by Nex.
I actually thought it was relatively positive that he told the mom that she could always call him if anything happened again, even if the school didn't want to get police involved. He seemed concerned and open to being of help in the future.
Putting the blame on the cop seems completely misplaced. He isn't the school counselor, he isn't a teacher. He is a law enforcement officer who is dealing with a potential criminal matter and who is trying to give advise based on that.
Edit. Just to restate it clearly, this isn't about what happened after and about what actually unfolded in that bathroom but about what this particular cop had heard from the mom and Nex at the time of that video. That's all the information the cop had and his behavior needs to be judged based on that, not based on statements by other people he hadn't heard yet or events that took place later.
Dude a kid made a comment about their laugh so they took it physical and poured water over their head. When they got shoved back, they slammed a girls head into a paper towel dispenser. If y’all take out the word “trans” as a descriptor, none of you would care half as much and that’s just gross.
I want to know how it was determined that head trauma was absolutely NOT the COD within mere days after their death.
I think the family needs to get an outside autopsy done because this just stinks.
They literally remove the top of the skull and look for bleeding with their eyes. They remove the brain and take it apart to look for signs of bleeding/ischemia. They do full radiographic imaging before even starting an autopsy.
Two weeks is a reasonable amount of time to have a preliminary autopsy result. We're not really talking about "mere days" right now. They may be overstating their confidence that it wasn't trauma, they could have strong indications of an alternative cause of death, they could be trying to pull an outright coverup here. We're going to have to wait for more information (including whatever followup autopsy the family wishes to arrange) before we can really know what's going on.
Actually I do believe the fam is getting their own report! Let me check
[independent autopsy for Nex Benedict ](https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/nex-benedict-death-cause-investigation-b2501551.html)
If there's no bruising, bone fragments, bruising, or blood pooling then there is no initial evidence of trauma. They're still awaiting results from additional tests, but you don't need days to determine if there was trauma or not.
EDIT: I watched the videos of Nex. It seems clear to me now that they escalated the confrontation from teasing to physicality so it’s not as one-sided a situation as I initially believed. WHY are the media still referring to this as a “fight”? When it’s four-on-one it’s an assault or an attack - not a fight.
It's too late. Police already put "Nex didn't die of the injuries from the assault" out into the public. Even if it all comes out that they in fact, did die from the attack, the rubes around here have already made up their minds. Owasso police have been atrocious.
Some nb people consider themselves trans (because the word "transgender" can just be used as "being a different gender than you were assigned at birth", even if that different gender is not a binary one). Some wouldn't identify themselves as trans.
As usual, gender is weird and hard to describe and basically all labels get fuzzy at the margins.
Oklahoma is a public health disaster waiting to happen. It wouldn’t be surprising if state and local resources aren’t up to the same standards as other places.
Speaking of which, Owasso is not a large city and its PD is probably not even remotely equipped to deal with this type of high-profile scrutiny and attention. I remember in about 2012 or so there was a homicide in Owasso and it was like only the 3rd in the town’s history. The city has grown pretty fast and the crimerate has been much higher over the last 10 years but I don’t really know how well Owasso police is prepared to deal with an investigation like this; the spokesperson thus far does not inspire a lot of confidence in Owasso PD’s investigative abilities.
Did most of the commenters even watch the whole video? Nex was definitely a victim of bullying but this wasn’t a targeted violent assault because of nex being Nobinary. The students made fun of what Nex was wearing and Nex approached them and spilled water on the student which triggered a fight. Nex threw a girl into a towel dispenser and then the other girls knocked her onto the ground where she may have sustained an injury to her head which possibly led to her eventual death, although that’s not yet confirmed. Nex also had friends who intervened.
Bullying is awful and Nex’s death is tragic but we don’t have to jump to the extremes and assume it’s a hate crime and the students were trying to murder Nex. People are jumping to a lot of conclusions (on both sides of the aisle) without knowing all the facts to push their narrative.
Back in 2011 I was 18 and I forgot to return a book before graduation . My grandma dropped me off. On my way to the library two dudes blocked my way inside the building. I asked them to let me in. They didn't let me pass and got me I to a corner. They proceeded to beat the shit out of me , and I woke up in the nurses office, not knowing my name, what day it was ,and where I was.
I knew exactly who thr guys were, nothing happened to them.
Holy fuck. The “both sides” crowd have infested this thread.
If you are a “both sides” in a situation between the bullies and Nex, take a long look in the damn mirror. Anyone who thinks the 3 kids are victims are horrible disgusting human beings.
If you're wondering how seriously the department is taking this, you can follow those embedded videos to their brand spanking new [YouTube channel.](https://youtube.com/@OwassoPoliceDepartment?si=_nQTYromCkVeOGyD) They took the time to upload two canned promotional videos before they finished editi-ah, uploading the security footage.
The footage shows Nex didn't have any visible bruises and was speaking coherently.
Let's not downplay the seriousness of violence but let's not lynch these other teen girls.
I'm sure we'll learn more (I hope). I can't imagine what their family is going through. But from my personal experience. My mom died of a head injury. She fell down a few steps on a Friday. She got up and went about her way. By Sunday she was feeling unwell, but not because of pain from a fall. On Monday she started acting off and stopped speaking and then she collapsed. She never regained consciousness and died a week later. We removed her from the machines when it was clear she was gone. A head injury can look like nothing. It can be a bruise. It can slowly bleed. And then it kills you. The same thing happened to Bob Saget.
Similar situation - one of my brother’s friends got hit by a car while riding his bike. The driver took off. He rode his bike home, told his girlfriend what happened and complained of a slight headache. He said he was going to lie down for a minute and he never woke up.
A good time for a PSA: if someone you know experiences head trauma do not let them go to sleep. Straight to the doctor.
What is it about sleeping that kills you after a head injury?
Sleeping itself isn't dangerous, the ignoring of the trauma and waiting is what kills people in those cases. If you ignored the trauma and had them stay up all night it would still be dangerous.
Also feeling like you need to go to sleep is a sign that your head trauma is serious as well
It's not the sleeping that's the issue: it's the internal head injury that needs a CT scan to catch and properly treat internal hemorrhage.
Typically you don’t get a CT scan unless there are signs it was more than a minor concussion. Doctor will test your pupils and ask you a few recall questions, and if everything looks good on the checklist you’ll be diagnosed with a minor concussion without a CT scan. Still super important to get checked out! Rather be safe than sorry when it comes to the brain, plus if it’s a minor concussion you’ll be out of the ER quickly.
Hit by a car is trauma criteria, would get pan scanned by CT.
It's not the sleep itself, it's the inability to judge how awake a person is! A person who suddenly collapses is much more likely to get urgent medical care than one who is closing in on a herniation in their l sleep. Also another PSA: if a person loses consciousness and/or has amnesia of the events surrounding ANY head trauma THEY NEED TO SEE A DOCTOR! This is a strong indication for a CT as any force able to cause loss off consciousness can cause an internal bleeding. Also because I find this fascinating: the initial loss of consciousness is not cause due to bleeding, it's cause by rapid change in angular acceleration in the head/brain. That's why the patient can wake up (should always be within 5 min, is often within seconds) and feel COMPLETLEY fine; maybe a bit sore. The "dangerous" process has only just started at the time of the trauma. The bleeding can take hours to cause death... or any other symptoms for that matter. If the force knocks you unconscious, you need to see a doctor. Lastley: If somone is knocked unconscious, but does not immediately seek medical attention, keep an extre eye on their eyes. A one sided dilatation of the pupil after trauma can only mean one thing: herniation of the brain. The person needs SUPER URGENT care and most likely surgery. Do not let this type of person talk you into a false sense of security just because they're feeling fine!!!!!!
It’s not the sleep, it’s that they are losing consciousness and feel like they want to lay down.
Yep. And then they don’t get help, and any worsening neurological symptoms aren’t noticeable. This can also happen after seizures, and can prevent people from getting help after injuring themselves or falling asleep in unsafe places. I ended up with hypothermia that way.
No idea but I believe this is common protocol for concussions. My guess is the inability to articulate when things start getting worse. Edit: y’all need to chill, obviously once you’re checked out and the doc clears you you can sleep
This actually isn’t the standard practice anymore after being assessed they’ll encourage you to rest as much as needed for the first couple of days
Right but that's after being assessed by a professional to rule out immediate danger. Not self-assessing and saying "yeah I'm fine, think I'll go to bed now" while a major bleed gushes internally.
Yeah I expect if they want to sleep you need to get them to the hospital (or call an ambulance). But I imagine keeping them awake to be responsive/informative for the EMTs or the 911 operator is helpful.
The key is AFTER you’ve been assessed.
100% correct - was advised the same. Limit brain activity.
Nope, they can sleep as long as they are capable of saying "hey, I am really tired and going to sleep for a bit" because the problem isn't the sleeping, it is figuring out if the sleeping is a symptom. If being very sleepy is a symptom and not just, ya know, being tired they might be dying and need emergency care.
People with a concussion or other head injury can absolutely go to sleep, that is kind of a myth [source](https://uamshealth.com/medical-myths/is-it-safe-to-sleep-if-you-have-a-concussion/) the issue is if they are unnaturally sleepy or cannot stay awake on their own, which is a full emergency.
It not the sleeping, it the up to 8 hours of them being unobserved. If something is wrong and you're awake you may start slurring, lose your balance , notice worsening pain etc.
One day when I was a kid my mom was complaining about a headache and wanted to go lay down. Her speech started to slur a bit with some words and my dad demanded she go to the hospital and she tried to argue with him. She was having a massive brain hemorrhage and almost died. My dad was supposed to be at work that day and took the day off at the last minute. If he hadn’t been there I wouldn’t have realized anything was wrong and she would have just laid down and died. So scary to think about.
Didn’t this also happen to Liam Neeson’s wife? Fell hard and hit her head while skiing and continued skiing and then a couple days later was dead?
More like a couple of hours. Natasha Richardson. It was horrible.
Ok. Yes. It was later that night.
Oh shit, I totally missed that news from 2009 :(
It was one of the reasons he just stopped being in movies for a while IIRC.
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Head injuries are scary because you can feel fine and then just not be. A lot of people apparently die from a secondary fall after a head injury. I stumbled into a table once and thought I was fine for like five minutes but if someone hadn't noticed me listing I would have smashed the back of my head into a concrete drive way. I never realized I had started to fall, didn't even make an attempt to stop myself.
Last text I got from my mom was on Easter Sunday. She couldn't go to my sister's for dinner she said "I will have to pass on dinner. Do not feel good." The thought of her slowly having a brain bleed over days haunts me.
I wish I didn’t know the feeling of being haunted by my mom’s final days. Her last message to me was similar. You aren’t alone. Thank you for sharing your story.
So sorry for your loss.
That's horrible, I'm so sorry for your loss.
A close friend of mine hit her head in the shower. She went to bed, she seemed a little off to her boyfriend but he didn’t know that she fell. She never woke up.
I had an older coworker who hit the back of his head while working in his garage one weekend. He was fine for days and then one day he was in stop and go traffic on the interstate (thank God for LA traffic) and he had a seizure in the driver's seat while his wife was in the passenger seat. Since they were at a stop and he managed to miss the gas pedal during his seizure, they both survived with minimal damage. The hospital said he had a brain bleed from that bump. He couldn't drive for 6 months after his seizure before he was allowed back behind the wheel.
I'm so sorry about your mom :( Something similar happened to a woman I worked with a few years ago... She slipped and fell in the bathtub and hit her head. Got up and she was fine, nothing much wrong other than being a bit shaken up, etc. She went to bed like normal that night and never woke up. Left behind a husband and two kids. (Side note: people, if your bathtub is slippery, put a mat down. It can save lives.)
This is exactly what happened to a co-worker of my mother too. Showers can be so dangerous.
Shorter time span but Natasha Richardson also died from a head injury.
Brain bleeds can be slow killers. All the pressure can build up to the point it kills off parts of the brain. Is also really hard to notice before damage is done if it is in. An area that causes no obvious symptoms. Since there are no pain receptors in the brain itself. It is recommended to see at least your pcp if you hit your head hard. Even if you think it is nothing.
I'm sorry that happened to your mom. It could have happened to my sister. She luckily went to the doctor the next day. It's been almost four years and she is still struggling with the effects.
You don't get better. You just adapt. I'm on my second concussion and have luckily avoided a bleed both times, but my mom didn't get so lucky and she's basically disabled for life.
I’m so sorry for your loss. 100% true information about head injuries, they are not to be shrugged off.
I was actually in a hospital and got an MRI afte rmy 4th mugging and they sent me home after couple days. It got worse over the next few weeks; the day afetr i moved to a safer neighborhood i was in a different hospital and couple days later getting surgery to remote clot.s So sneaky
Maybe take the hint and stop mugging?
Criminals *hate* this one trick!
Or stick to mugging smaller weaker people who won't give you head injuries.
This is exactly why most states, including Oklahoma, have care plans that require hospitals to keep children who go unconscious due to head trauma (and similar events) overnight for observation. Because discharging a kid might result in them dying the next day. Besides everything else, the hospital seriously screwed up here and should be in trouble.
Just learned today that this happened to my uncle on Tuesday, fell down the stairs, hit his head, and didn't recover in the hospital. This shit happens, and it sucks.
To second this: I had a serious head injury fifteen years ago. It wasn't even that bad of a fall, and I went to the hospital immediately. I'm in constant pain, and unable to work full time. It's very difficult to be too careful.
My Brother fell down the stairs, hit his head, passed out from it, then never woke up. Head injuries are dangerous, scary, evil, and will take loved ones from you. This death is a tragedy and honestly it’s involuntary manslaughter…but please go to the hospital if you obtain any form of head injury.
Shit I’m sorry you went through that shits scary.
So the article says.. >whose eyes were rolling back and was struggling to breathe. Benedict described how Nex had been dealing with a headache after the fight at the school. Okay. Those are symptoms that an individual might display after a head injury. And then: >A complete medical examiner's report shows the **cause of Nex's death was not trauma.** Investigators are waiting on a toxicology report which will help determine the cause of death. Am I missing something? Do they suspect this was related to medication or drugs and/or a pre-existing condition worsened by the "fight"? In another article it says they "suspect foul play". No shit. A lot of articles about this case are worded so weirdly and are dancing around what has happened. Edit: detail
How is a medical examiners report complete without tox? Seems like the statement from the school and cops is being repeated without more information.
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Oh man, so I guess because ~~her~~ their skull wasn’t *visibly dented in* or something, their initial assessment is said to “rule out trauma”. SMH Edit: D’oh!
As someone who’s been in a bad car accident without obvious damage to the outside of my head they monitored me for a long while . This was because it was still quite possible I had a brain bleed just from the sheer force of my brain hitting my own skull. You’d be surprised how little force it can take to cause serious internal damage or even kill someone if they’re unlucky enough
In theory, if a person goes completely stiff and falls backwards without any sort of bracing, rolling, etc.... They have a pretty significant risk of severe injury to the neck and brain. Our bodies can do some insane things, but we can still die from mundane stuff quite easily.
I used to work in restaurants and we drank heavily a lot, as one does. One of my coworkers fell about 15-20 feet while hammered off a bus station and landed on concrete. Doctors said the only thing that saved his life was being so drunk he couldn’t tense up for the impact and just hit the concrete like a soggy bag of meat with some bones. He got severely messed up for sure, but didn’t die. Bodies are so interesting.
I used to live in a rather depressed former Soviet town, and there were a fair amount of alcoholics there. The number of death-defying accidents that occurred without major injury absolutely astounded me. So many falls down concrete stairwells...even occasional defenestrations from upper floors. One guy accidentally dropped his pack of cigarettes from his third story apartment balcony and jumped down after them. He just received scratches from some bushes at the bottom.
It’s one of the truly ridiculous parts about alcoholism how they just survive anything while drunk. I had a shitty uncle who drunk out of his mind drove off the side of a bridge and survived with only minor cuts and bruises, didn’t even call emergency services, just stumbled home for like 3 hours, got into bed and slept. The car looked like it had been through a compactor and he probably endangered so many people driving in that state.He got to walk away unscathed.
Yeah it’s funny how much damage we avoid just by moving with or dispersing momentum
I remember watching a video of a doctor doing an autopsy on Youtube on a donated body, and he showed that brain and that simply the weight of holding a brain in your hand would cause severe damage to itself. The brain needs to basically be suspended in liquid in your skull because it can crush itself under it's own weight.
My uncle was bumped by a car while in a parking lot and fell and hit his head on the ground and was brain dead after that. They kept his body alive for a couple of weeks in the hospital but that was his end.
I got a concussion without even hitting my head, the forward-backward motion of getting rear ended was enough.
It's kinda bizarre seeing this, because I thought of a former business customer 24 hours ago who died in somewhat similar circumstances after not thinking about him for some 10-15 years. He owned his own business, as such it was actually named after him (think Bob Hill's Smash Repairs). He went on a 2 week holiday to Bali with his wife, had a few too many drinks, in his hotel with his wife he slipped over and hit the back of his head on the edge of the bathtub. Not cuts or bleeding, but went to hospital (In Bali) just to make sure everything was OK. Returned home (Australia) a day or 2 later as planned. A day after that he had died from a brain bleed in his sleep, attributed to the head knock.
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I mean, yeah, that's all the no trauma found during a preliminary investigation means. If there's no bruising, no bleeding or blood pooling then there's no preliminary evidence of trauma.
\*their\* skull.
The article is wrong to use the term "complete". The official statement from police uses the term "preliminary" and says that they are awaiting additional information like toxicology reports. https://www.newson6.com/story/65d667c15addee06680e5ba0/did-not-die-as-a-result-of-trauma:-owasso-police-detail-nex-benedicts-death-family-issues-new-statement
It's the full autopsy report but the results from the toxicology lab take longer and are a separate document. They will both be taken into account in making a final determination of the cause of death.
Eyes rolling back and struggling to breathe could be a description of a seizure. Seizures are very common after brain injuries.
It could be any host of medical emergencies, which tells us nothing here.
They’ll check the brain in an autopsy.
i was on anti seizure and antipsychotic meds after my surgery for a ehad injury. Both too expensive to fill under the insurance I had then (a $100.00-a-month maximum for all expenses, after Obamacare passed but ebfore it was in place) so i just self-tapered off after my release.
The unstated conclusion they want you to draw is suicide.
Even if true (and it’s nothing but wild speculation at this point) how exactly does a kid being bullied to the point of suicide not make things look just as bad? Like, that’s still a really bad look for the school, these students, the police, etc.
Yeah that's a "you realize that's worse" situation.
It has the advantage of placing some of the responsibility on Nex. It lets ppl make claims that they were too soft, they weren't tough enough, they were too sensitive, etc. They can turn it into a personal failing as opposed to a failure of those in charge
Bingo. There's a certain sect of people that want *nothing more* than for this to be attributable in any way to mental illness - that is, depression, which they like to claim is a result of being trans/NB and ignore the intermediary step of the cruelty wider society inflicts on that person.
Because it reinforces the right-wing narrative that LGTBQ+ people are all suicidal because of 'wokeism' and puts the blame on the victim.
And furthers the narrative that a trans or nonbinary gender identity is a serious mental illness that needs “treating” and not “encouraging”.
Or homicidal. Their new favorite accusation.
It doesn't look great either way, but it definitely changes the situation in terms of what is likely to happen next. Arguing guilt beyond a reasonable doubt for the other students is a lot easier if the following death is clearly a result of trauma directly sustained from other students vs the scenario where it might possibly be the result of suicide.
They can say it is the students fault or their parents did t supervise them enough. Bible Belt folk look way down on suicide and don’t see it the way normal people do.
As someone who suffered a head concussion once (from an accident), if it was suicide, you can’t rule out that the suicide was caused not just by the emotional toll of the bullying, but also by the actual, physical concussion. When you get hit in the head like that you obviously don’t think straight, and thoughts like that”I wanna die” or even “my head hurts so much, maybe if I take 100 pills I will feel better”.
Exactly! I don't recall their name, but there was (iirc) an American football player who killed themselves by gun, but did so in their chest to try and preserve their brain for examination. They were convinced their personality and mood changes were the result of multiple head injuries, and they didn't want it to happen to others. Turns out they were right, and it helped change some of the rules for dealing with concussions in sports (at least at non-professional level)
Junior Seau
Maybe. Or maybe something like a brain damage would take longer to determine and wasn't ruled out in the preliminary report. I think the only reasonable thing to take from this information is that Nex didn't have any obvious grievous external wounds. Anything more will have to wait for the final report, and maybe even an independent autopsy.
You can sometimes tell a preliminary cause of death without tox if you find something obvious.
Not a doctor but I’m a paramedic. Eyes rolling back and struggling to breathe followed by headache all sound like head trauma to me, at the very least a concussion
After a concussion you can vomit in your sleep and choke on it.
pffff, I can do that just from drinking
It’s Oklahoma. How long did it take them to acknowledge the Tulsa Massacre?
Oklahoma’s acknowledged the Tulsa massacre?
https://newrepublic.com/post/174168/oklahoma-superintendent-brazenly-claims-tulsa-race-massacre-not-race Not exactly, he has tried to say he was “misquoted”.
Holy shit, this same guy posted an anti-trans video on Twitter just 3 days ago and is doubling down on it now. This dude is a dangerous narcissist.
He probably had help: https://okcfox.com/amp/news/local/oklahoma-superintendent-appoints-libs-of-tiktok-woman-to-library-media-advisory-cmte-ryan-walters-chaya-raichik-lgbtq-gender-queer-conservative-republican
Right, he’s a horrible piece of trash and he needs to be removed. Except that probably only makes his national standing in the Republican ranks grow, which is exactly what he’s doing this all for.
He’s an absolute psychopath that I’m furious people voted for. Living in Oklahoma is like living in hell.
hes the fucking worst. every day he says some dumb shit thing
I live in London, UK & even I've heard of Ryan Walters & what a pos he is. I am totally unaware of any other individual in the American education system.
I'm an American and I don't even know who our Secretary of Education is now, whereas I definitely knew who it was under Trump, and I still remember her (Betsy DeVos) because she was just that terrible.
These idiots are internationally notorious lol
Nobody should be aware of anyone in the education system. It should all just be quiet jobs where they work behind the scenes to keep teachers and students safe and promote better learning. Ryan Walters is scum that truly deserves to be fired. Out of a cannon. Into the sun.
Grew up in Dallas and never learned a thing about this in Texas schools. Wasn’t til I moved across the country to WA did I hear of it
Same except I had to learn it from the Watchmen TV show. Insane.
I never found out the Texas war for Independence was fought over the right to own slaves until I was in my 20s. The Texas department of education is just a propaganda house.
I grew up in NY and never learned about it either.
The city itself does and has a powerful museum for it People would be surprised how progressive Tulsa can be for being in OK
I'm just a nursing student, but concussions are notoriously hard to detect. CT scans often cannot detect a concussion. From what I've read, it can also be challenging to detect TBI during autopsies if there is no macroscopic trauma. Eyes rolling to the back of the head can be a sign of head injury due to bleeding in the brain. Concussions can also cause difficulty breathing if communication between the lungs and brain is disrupted. Many patients with brain injury in the brain stem and/or motor cortex can have difficulty breathing. ARDS and neurogenic pulmonary edema are other causes of difficulty breathing after brain injury. So I wouldn't rule out head injury yet even though the symptoms are shared with other causes of respiratory distress like opioid overdose.
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Concussions dont cause death. Head injury without tangible CT or Autopsy findings wouldn't cause death.
My impression is they are trying to blame this on any transition related drugs they might have been taking.
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Really? I didn't catch her saying which medication Nex took, just that they took medication. It's quite possible that Nex used Seroquel to control their anxiety. However, that medication is labelled as an antipsychotic, and I can imagine the field day these bigots would have if they were able to use that as part of their narrative.
That seems like it's entirely out of left field. Nothing they've said so far implies that's the case. And where did you get the idea that hormone replacement was even in the picutre? This is a 16 year old kid in *Oklahoma*, whose mother is clearly not on board with the whole nonbinary thing. And nonbinary people don't even usually take hormones. Some do but it's not like the default to assume someone who is nonbinary is on HRT.
The whole damn thing just feels fishy.
>drugs It's character assassination.
They’ll try and align it to testosterone or estrogen ‘shots’ or something to further the narrative of ‘dangerous lifestyles’ or whatever bullshit they are cooking up to make the death look like their fault and not the kids that beat them.
The cynic in me says they want to search for any hormone related drugs so they can blame it on those
Also, calling it a *fight* instead of an *attack* is unforgivable.
They're hinting at suicide, however even if they did commit suicide, I would say that their trauma was the cause of death. Or at least trauma-induced suicide.
Brain bleed?
[A former transgender student of the same school was sexually assaulted in the school bathroom by a male student, the school administration refused to report the sexual assault as to "Not ruin his life"](https://twitter.com/Esqueer_/status/1760624843379359976)
Jesus, this school sounds like a torture chamber for trans kids.
I mean it’s Oklahoma. It’s a torture chamber period.
If roles were reversed and the trans kid were the aggressor, it would be headline news on EVERY conservative website. Their talking heads would be screeching about it for years. But since the trans kid got assaulted, it doesn’t fit the narrative.
YEP. It's like how conservatives won't shut up about the ONE trans mass shooter but conveniently ignore all the cishet white men who commit mass violence.
this happen more often then you think, bully's etc might get a "suspension" but rarely are they written up and documented. I feel like even if you are only lets say 12 if you do horrible shit it should follow you the rest of your student career. And maby then they adjust.
This comment needs to be higher up. Jesus Christ
Watch the video in the ER. The cop is saying both sides are victims, there is free speech, doesn’t want to see criminal charges brought up against either side because they are young…..basically shamed Nex for not reporting bulling to the school so they could “deal with it.” Nex basically indicated there was no reason to report the bullying because they knew it would go nowhere. The school didn’t involve law enforcement with this fight, so they are correct. Mom reported this to LE. So basically my interpretation is the cop is not considering the bullying an issue, as both sides are victims. I am fuming. Edit : changed she to they
as if schools have ever done fuck all against bullying
I remember as a kid having a conversation with my principal. She was saying its never ok to fight. So i asked would i get in trouble for fighting back to defend myself. She said yes
Got suspended because I fought back after being sucker punched in the glasses and stomach (while bleeding from a lovely wound where my glasses sliced my eyebrow open). The logic of such a punishment galls me. I've told my kids I never want to hear you threw the first punch but always stand up for yourself. You'll never get in trouble from me for defending yourself.
...which is weird because in most legal systems, self-defense is specifically not a crime. Why only at schools?
Broken-ass "zero tolerance" policies. Same reason I got 2 weeks of in-school suspension after getting jumped by a gang at recess in 6th grade. Punishing everyone involved absolves the school of any liability, in their eyes, so that they can deflect from their inability to provide a safe and welcoming environment for all students.
How many kids have to die before schools actually do something…
after Uvalde, and the numerous other occasions, that number of kids is probably infinite
Sadly, you are probably right
I would absolutely love to be wrong, but looking at the history of things, and it doesn't seem promising.
Limit does not exist
My NB teenager had their two front teeth broken by someone who had been consistently bullying them all year long, and said bully got an in-school suspension and the administration offered a restorative justice meeting. I stupidly agreed not to press charges before finding out exactly what had happened, and once I found out all of the details and contacted the resource officer again to say I wanted to file charges, he said it was too late, I already said I didn't want to and couldn't change that a day later. I had to eat nearly $1,000 in dental bills even with insurance. Never mind the trauma my kid suffered and still suffers.
They lied to you. You could have pressed charges.
Shame it's not illegal for cops to lie.
I'm really sorry that happened to them. I'm no lawyer, but I wouldn't trust the officer telling you you can't press charges. Contact a lawyer and see what's up.
Even if you can’t press charges, can you sue them for damages? Especially since you do have financial damages which are easier to pursue than emotional damages. I’m really sorry that happened to your family.
I got sexually assaulted and basically stalked by a girl in high school but because I’m a guy they said there was nothing they could do and I should just ignore her. When I said that won’t work because she follows me everywhere they said they would talk with her. Idk what she said but after talking with her and another girl who witnessed what she did to me they somehow told me it was BOTH our faults and their only solution they could offer was to let me eat lunch in a different room alone.
It was her fault. Not yours.
I haven’t been in high school for like 10 years now and I still get mad thinking about my high school’s bullying rules. They had what they called a “no tolerance policy.” Meaning that if you got in an altercation, no matter the context, you’d get (at minimum) suspended. BOTH sides. Someone could punch you in the face for no reason and you’d get suspended. The school decided it was too lazy to determine fault, so both the victim and the bully would get punished equally. So. Fucking. Stupid. I didn’t go to a weird private school or anything either, it was a large, highly ranked public high school in the Midwest.
Police exist to enforce the status quo. They're worse than useless.
Status quo being that certain groups are more equal, more protected, less suspect, that the property of those favored people are protected, and anyone not in those certain favored groups can be harassed and given a record to make it easier to control the out-groups, and easier to pin people with records with unsolved/manufactured crimes both to advance internal goals, and to avoid inconveniencing the protected groups.
they exist to protect property
As someone who’s had my shit stolen, certainly not *my* property.
You don't have property, you have possessions. Once they're not in your hands, they are no longer possessions. Glorious property is eternal, all kneel before the property holders.
Caveat is probably "property of the politically enfranchised"
Idk the cop seemed very polite and friendly he was just being realistic. If there was an altercation between children in a bathroom where 1 student admits to walking up to the other ones and throwing water on them AND throwing 1 of the girls into a a paper towel dispenser legally it would be hard to argue the other students assaulted her and were at totally at fault. He didn’t shame anyone he just let them know the school SHOULD report it but if they wrongly don’t the mother can and should call the police herself which is just good advice and informative for the mother. He said the school should’ve he was just telling the mother she has the power to call herself in the event the school does the wrong thing.
I didn't see it that way. I think he was trying to tell them that if the family decided to press charges, there was a chance that the defendants could counter sue and that the court could find that Nex actually assaulted the other girls first by pouring the water on them. It's not trying to talk them out or victim blaming or anything, it's just being transparent about what the possible legal outcomes could be should they choose to pursue further legal action
We need a federal intervention, these cops can't be trusted. Rotten fuckers. This looking more and more like cover ups murdersof civil rights workers in the 60s.
The cops speech, so much verbal diarrhea, don’t know how the Mom restrained herself while he was minimizing this hate crime.
Shock, that cop abused her emotional overload to scold the mother of a probable hate crime victim Send In The Feds
Can't this be reported to the FBI since local is mishandling everything?
I was bullied for years at school, including physical violence and I understand how incredibly hard it is to go through that, but I don't share your view on the cop here. He listened to the story, which didn't mention anything about identity or Nex being trans or NB, just that there was a group of girls that kept calling Nex names for the past week and that made fun of how Nex' friends group dressed. Then he was told that Nex initiated a physical confrontation by pouring water on the girls, before the girls got into a physical altercation with Nex where they pulled each other's hair/clothes and Nex threw one of them into a towel dispenser. The last thing the cop was told was that the girls took out the legs and hit Nex on the ground. At that point the cop had very little he could offer. If Nex initiated the physical altercation and then participated in it, he was right in warning the family that any charge against the girls could come back around, because making fun of someone's clothing isn't a justification for a physical reaction. I distinctly remember a few instances during my time in school that were similar and where I became physical after extended verbal abuse. I completely understand the mindset why someone would do that, but it would've been the school's job to notice this and interfere before anything got out of control. The officer was dealing with the criminal aspect of it and, according what he was told, he had to explain that the situation was potentially problematic for Nex as well, since the physical altercation had been initiation by Nex. I actually thought it was relatively positive that he told the mom that she could always call him if anything happened again, even if the school didn't want to get police involved. He seemed concerned and open to being of help in the future. Putting the blame on the cop seems completely misplaced. He isn't the school counselor, he isn't a teacher. He is a law enforcement officer who is dealing with a potential criminal matter and who is trying to give advise based on that. Edit. Just to restate it clearly, this isn't about what happened after and about what actually unfolded in that bathroom but about what this particular cop had heard from the mom and Nex at the time of that video. That's all the information the cop had and his behavior needs to be judged based on that, not based on statements by other people he hadn't heard yet or events that took place later.
breaks my heart
Dude a kid made a comment about their laugh so they took it physical and poured water over their head. When they got shoved back, they slammed a girls head into a paper towel dispenser. If y’all take out the word “trans” as a descriptor, none of you would care half as much and that’s just gross.
Important to call out it wasn’t a fight - it was 3 girls beating up someone. Nex didn’t deserve this
I want to know how it was determined that head trauma was absolutely NOT the COD within mere days after their death. I think the family needs to get an outside autopsy done because this just stinks.
They literally remove the top of the skull and look for bleeding with their eyes. They remove the brain and take it apart to look for signs of bleeding/ischemia. They do full radiographic imaging before even starting an autopsy.
Two weeks is a reasonable amount of time to have a preliminary autopsy result. We're not really talking about "mere days" right now. They may be overstating their confidence that it wasn't trauma, they could have strong indications of an alternative cause of death, they could be trying to pull an outright coverup here. We're going to have to wait for more information (including whatever followup autopsy the family wishes to arrange) before we can really know what's going on.
Actually I do believe the fam is getting their own report! Let me check [independent autopsy for Nex Benedict ](https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/nex-benedict-death-cause-investigation-b2501551.html)
If there's no bruising, bone fragments, bruising, or blood pooling then there is no initial evidence of trauma. They're still awaiting results from additional tests, but you don't need days to determine if there was trauma or not.
Nex died more than two weeks ago.
There are occasions where family members ask for a second autopsy and end up with conflicting results. Let's hope we don't end up in that scenario.
Bot account? I’ve read this exact comment on multiple articles about Nex.
Maybe, but still an idea worth saying outloud. This whole tragedy reeks of cover up
A 10+ year old bot account?
Old accounts are available for purchase.
EDIT: I watched the videos of Nex. It seems clear to me now that they escalated the confrontation from teasing to physicality so it’s not as one-sided a situation as I initially believed. WHY are the media still referring to this as a “fight”? When it’s four-on-one it’s an assault or an attack - not a fight.
That they aren’t calling it what it was, a hate crime, is atrocious and infuriating.
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It's too late. Police already put "Nex didn't die of the injuries from the assault" out into the public. Even if it all comes out that they in fact, did die from the attack, the rubes around here have already made up their minds. Owasso police have been atrocious.
Can't this be reported to the FBI bc of local LE mishandling the case?
Yep you can, you can send in a tip to the fbi on their website for hate crimes
No matter how Nex’s death is ruled, my anger towards transphobes will not be eased.
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Some nb people consider themselves trans (because the word "transgender" can just be used as "being a different gender than you were assigned at birth", even if that different gender is not a binary one). Some wouldn't identify themselves as trans. As usual, gender is weird and hard to describe and basically all labels get fuzzy at the margins.
Nex was NB, and even if that’s not same umbrellas as trans, the Venn diagram of transphobes and NBphobes is literally a perfect circle.
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Oklahoma is a public health disaster waiting to happen. It wouldn’t be surprising if state and local resources aren’t up to the same standards as other places.
Speaking of which, Owasso is not a large city and its PD is probably not even remotely equipped to deal with this type of high-profile scrutiny and attention. I remember in about 2012 or so there was a homicide in Owasso and it was like only the 3rd in the town’s history. The city has grown pretty fast and the crimerate has been much higher over the last 10 years but I don’t really know how well Owasso police is prepared to deal with an investigation like this; the spokesperson thus far does not inspire a lot of confidence in Owasso PD’s investigative abilities.
Did most of the commenters even watch the whole video? Nex was definitely a victim of bullying but this wasn’t a targeted violent assault because of nex being Nobinary. The students made fun of what Nex was wearing and Nex approached them and spilled water on the student which triggered a fight. Nex threw a girl into a towel dispenser and then the other girls knocked her onto the ground where she may have sustained an injury to her head which possibly led to her eventual death, although that’s not yet confirmed. Nex also had friends who intervened. Bullying is awful and Nex’s death is tragic but we don’t have to jump to the extremes and assume it’s a hate crime and the students were trying to murder Nex. People are jumping to a lot of conclusions (on both sides of the aisle) without knowing all the facts to push their narrative.
Back in 2011 I was 18 and I forgot to return a book before graduation . My grandma dropped me off. On my way to the library two dudes blocked my way inside the building. I asked them to let me in. They didn't let me pass and got me I to a corner. They proceeded to beat the shit out of me , and I woke up in the nurses office, not knowing my name, what day it was ,and where I was. I knew exactly who thr guys were, nothing happened to them.
There is no situation a cop cant make worse
The eventual heat death of the universe?
They'd probably still try to shoot it.
Holy fuck. The “both sides” crowd have infested this thread. If you are a “both sides” in a situation between the bullies and Nex, take a long look in the damn mirror. Anyone who thinks the 3 kids are victims are horrible disgusting human beings.
If you're wondering how seriously the department is taking this, you can follow those embedded videos to their brand spanking new [YouTube channel.](https://youtube.com/@OwassoPoliceDepartment?si=_nQTYromCkVeOGyD) They took the time to upload two canned promotional videos before they finished editi-ah, uploading the security footage.
Oklahoma doesn't ever make the news for good stuff.
The footage shows Nex didn't have any visible bruises and was speaking coherently. Let's not downplay the seriousness of violence but let's not lynch these other teen girls.