The family of a 13-year-old Black girl in Pembroke Pines, Florida has filed a lawsuit against their child's former school, saying the teen was bullied for months by classmates, then falsely accused of threatening her school and wrongly detained at a juvenile detention facility for 11 days.
In the lawsuit against Renaissance Charter School, Nia Whims' family said they reported the alleged bullying in August and requested a meeting with school officials . But administrators never addressed the issue and the bullying continued until the family enrolled the child in a different school, the lawsuit states.
According to NBC News, the family said the harassment escalated in November after Whims went to Instagram to speak with a Renaissance Charter School student about the bullying she had faced. The second teen, who is identified as M.S. in the lawsuit, allegedly created a fake Instagram page using Whims' name after the two spoke on social media.
Pretending to be Whims, M.S. sent messages to herself that “included threats to blow up the school and kill people,” the lawsuit states. After authorities learned about the threat, the charter school was placed on limited lockdown until it was determined to be safe.
Police allegedly interrogated Whims after M.S. pointed to the teen as a suspect. Whims was then taken to a juvenile detention center, facing charges of second-degree felony for making a written threat to do bodily harm or commit an act of terrorism. The child, who spent 11 days in the facility, was released on Nov. 29 after police determined that the messages came from an IP address connected to M.S., the complaint states.
“Failure to promptly investigate this easily discoverable information by the Pembroke Pines Police Department caused (Nia Whims) to remain in a juvenile detention facility away from her family for eleven days," the family stated in the lawsuit.
Police provided an update on Feb. 10, saying Whims has been exonerated of the charges. While police said Whims' mother, Lezlie-Ann Davis, didn't cooperate with the investigation until December, the family said they gave police the iPad that their child had used to talk to M.S. on the day of her arrest.
M.S. was later charged with written threats to kill or do bodily harm, and falsifying a police report. According to NBC 6, Marwan Porter, a lawyer for the family, said race may have played a factor in the case.
"If it was a young Caucasian girl at a private school and this happens, does it go down like this?" Porter said at a news conference.
The family has also brought complaints against Meta, the parent company for Instagram. The social media company, according to the lawsuit, failed to "promptly provide or cooperate with the investigating officers."
