Police investigating alleged assault on transgender student inside Hopkins High
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Students and LGBTQ+ advocates rallied outside Hopkins High School Wednesday in support of a 17-year-old transgender student allegedly assaulted inside the school last week.
Police confirmed they are investigating the incident “as a possible hate crime,” although “details remain limited as the case was reported to police hours after the assault is said to have taken place,” said a spokesperson for the Minnetonka Police Department. The school is located in Minnetonka.
In a letter to families Tuesday, Hopkins High School principal Crystal Ballard said school leaders were unable to comment until the police investigation is complete.
“While we are aware that allegations of a hate crime have surfaced regarding this incident, it’s important to know that the incident has not been officially deemed a hate crime as the details are still being investigated,” Ballard wrote.
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The student’s family believes the incident was motivated by anti-LGBTQ+ bias.
In a phone conversation before the rally, parent Ashley Sovereign told MPR News her child was punched in the face by another student after being confronted by several students for using the boys bathroom when the gender-inclusive restroom was occupied.
Sovereign said her child suffered a concussion, as well as a broken jaw and teeth. She added that her teen did not know the student who threw the punch and that students had been using an anti-LGBTQ+ slur before the punch was thrown. Sovereign said the family has been frustrated by the district’s “radio silence” around the incident.
In an email, a spokesperson for Hopkins Public Schools said the protocol is that police are used to de-escalate and that the decision to press charges is decided by the family. They added that per the school’s discipline policy, anyone who engages in fighting is immediately suspended.
Rep. Leigh Finke, DFL-St. Paul, the state’s first transgender state representative, was at the rally Wednesday.
Finke called it “a deeply, deeply common and disturbing pattern in the United States that our community of trans people are targeted, youth especially are targeted, and doubly especially when we are using the bathroom. The simplest act manageable for a human is to just pee in peace.”