Nearly 2,000 people signed an online petition as of Thursday demanding multiple people seen attacking a boy at Valencia High School be punished after video of the incident began circulating social media.
The change.org petition was addressed to the Valencia High School baseball team and demanded the removal of those seen in the video from the team. Over 1,800 people had indicated their support of the request as of Thursday morning.
In the video, published Sunday, multiple people are seen throwing a boy against a fence, holding him down and hitting him several times as they screamed profanities.
Reports indicated the incident took place after a football match between Valencia and Saugus High Schools.
William S. Hart Union High School District spokeswoman Gail Pinkster said the attack took place Friday and an online schedule of football games stated the two teams played that same day.
The petition came after multiple people associated with the Valencia campus accused the local school district of taking too long to investigate the attack and punish those responsible.
Local law enforcement and the district were investigating the case and students who violated any school policies would be punished, Pinkster said.
“With social media we just want to remind people that all the facts may not be in front of them at this time. So we’re working really hard to determine all the facts,” she said.
No one was seriously injured during the incident, Pinkster told local news station SCVNews.com.
The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department had been investigating the incident, Deputy Josh Dubin said.
“It’s an active investigation that we have been working on for a few days. The school resource deputies are aware of the situation and the investigation is ongoing,” he said in a statement.
Despite claims that the attack was being investigated, one local teenager told KTLA action should have been taken sooner.
“I’m just really upset because it didn’t seemed like the district was really doing anything to the baseball kids,” said the teenager, who KTLA chose not to identify.
