Posted on February 10, 2023

Father of 14-Year-Old Who Killed Herself Days After Bullies Beat Her in Hallway Slams Trolls Linking Tragedy to Race

Melissa Koenig, Daily Mail, February 10, 2023

The father of a 14-year-old girl who took her own life after she was filmed being brutally beaten at a high school has slammed people linking the tragedy to race.

Disturbing video of the attack showed at least four students hitting Adriana Kuch with a water bottle while she walked with her boyfriend, before brutally kicking and punching the girl while she lay in the fetal position on the floor of the school hallway.

The race of the attackers is unclear from the video but some online have speculated that the assault at Central Regional High School in New Jersey’s Berkeley Township occurred over some sort of racial dispute.

But Adriana’s father vehemently denied those claims on Thursday as he seeks justice from school administrators he says failed to act during the assault on February 1.

As part of those efforts, more than 6,000 community members have now signed an online petition calling for changes to the school administration and increased security — with one woman revealing she is even suing the school district over an eerily similar incident involving her daughter.

In a Facebook post on Thursday, Michael Kuch said: ‘People are sending me garbage like this,’ sharing a screengrab from an Instagram story in which a person passing by one of the protests wrote: ‘They are protesting about that white girl.

‘Nah, cuz wtf why does black people do that to the white girl,’ the Instagram user writes, claiming, ‘black people know that white [people] hate them still.’

In response, Michael said his daughter ‘loved everyone ‘ and ‘did not care about race,’ claiming, ‘the world would be a better place if everyone was as colorblind as she was.’

He had previously told ABC 7 that he was horrified to see the way his daughter had been treated.

‘Getting hit with a water bottle didn’t hurt Adriana, what hurt her was the embarrassment and humiliation, they just kept coming at her,’ he said.

‘My daughter actually blacks out and they don’t call an ambulance, they take her to the nurse’s office,’ Kuch said.

He added that Adriana had ‘never been in a fight before, she’s 98 pounds, 5’2 “and she loves everybody.’

Police were never called after the attack, schools Superintendent Triantafillos Parlapanides later admitted to the outlet.

‘I don’t believe a police report was done. We normally just suspend. If a parent wants to press charges, they can with the police,’ he said.

‘We’re not going to double-whammy a kid where they are suspended and then police charges as well.’

He later also defended the administration’s actions to the New York Post, saying: ‘If a situation warrants it, we’ll call [police], but in this case the students were suspended immediately.

‘We address every incident of bullying, but some of it is on the internet and we aren’t privy to that,’ he continued. ‘We’re not the internet police, but we don’t put our head in the sand.’

Three students involved in the attack have since been charged with third-degree assault in the viral beating, and a fourth was charged with disorderly conduct.

They are also suspended from school indefinitely.

Outraged by the school’s lack-luster response, Michael seethed to NBC New York – slamming the institution that his daughter attended.

‘A kid is assaulted with a weapon and their policy is not to call the police or file a report,’ he said to the broadcaster.

He then wrote about the vicious attack on his Facebook calling the attack ‘planned’

‘These four girls planned and executed an attack. If you watch the videos I have, they are laughing while talking about what they are going to do at the start of the video,’ he wrote.

The grieving father said that he ‘called everyone,’ after he received the video – which showed his teenage daughter being beaten up – and ‘no action was taken.’

He said he also received a second video of the incident from someone who reached out to him online.

Michael said he wasn’t told that his daughter had been ‘smashed in the face with a bottle three times’ adding that he had also not been told his ‘daughter blacked out.’

‘All they did was take her to the school nurse, the school did not even file a police report. They told me that was not their policy,’ he wrote.

‘I had to take my daughter covered in blood to the local police station.’

Michael then took a swipe at the school saying more could have been done to discover and take down the videos.

‘If the school contacted the police and filed a report and conducted an investigation, these videos could have been discovered immediately,’ he wrote.

‘I want the entire world to know what these animals did to my daughter. I will not sleep until their family has to watch them stand in front of a judge and plead guilty.’

Michael demanded that the Ocean County school district be held accountable for the harassment and bullying his daughter suffered ‘over a long period of time.’

The school district has had issues with bullying in the past, it has been revealed, as parents and students continue to come forward detailing how they or their loved ones were bullied at the high school, where they say the administration failed to act.

Reviews of Central Regional High School going back six years show former students complaining about the rampant bullying and harassment at the school.

At the time, one student wrote in a Google Review that the school was ‘horrible,’ claiming they were ‘constantly bullied and no one tried to stop it no matter what.’

And just last year, Racheal O’Dea said her daughter was ‘jumped and physically assaulted by MULTIPLE girls at Central Regional.’

O’Dea claims her daughter ‘had reported threats and their previous stalking to the school weeks before it happened and NOTHING was done!’

She added that the attack on her daughter was also recorded and sent across social media, and her family sued the school district ‘due to their negligence and involvement.’

But as that lawsuit makes its way through the New Jersey court system, O’Dea took matters into her own hands on January 8, creating a Change.org petition calling for a change to the administration.

‘Parents, our kids are not safe!’ she wrote in the wake of Adriana’s death. ‘This school is too busy trying to save their own a**** rather than do their job!’

‘The bottom line is the violence at Central Regional needs to stop!’

‘There needs to be a change in administration, there needs to be more security, the school should not be able to solely label these “incidents,”‘ O’Dea continued. explaining, ‘The only thing Central Regional does is label these events as “hallway disturbances” so that it does not reach the threshold of needing to involve the police and reports aren’t made.

‘It gives them reason to punish the VICTIM,’ she said.

‘Parents, question EVERYTHING this school says! KNOW YOUR RIGHTS!

‘Students do better… stop hurting each other and if you see someone being hurt call 911!’ she urged. ‘It is not a fight, it is not an altercation, it’s not a hallway disturbance… IT’S CALLED ASSAULT.’

O’Dea then called for more security at the Bayville high school with more hallway monitors, an amendment to the federal Juvenile Justice Reform Act to better advocate for victims’ rights and higher accountability to schools that are negligent in responding to violence.

More than 6,300 community members have now signed the petition, as a TikTok video from a planned walkout at the school on Wednesday shows school administrators apparently dismissing a student who said she had reported sexual assault but nothing was done.

DailyMail.com has reached out to O’Dea as well as Central Regional School District Superintendent Triantafillos Parlapanides for comment.

More than 200 students protested outside Central Regional High on Wednesday, demanding action over bullying which they believe is systemic across the school district.

But almost immediately following the protest, Superintendent Parlapanides sent a letter to parents saying: ‘We fully understand that students, staff and the community are hurting for the loss of such a young lady with a bright future.

‘To ensure the health, safety and well-being for all students, there will not be any rallies in the future without prior administration approval otherwise action will be taken in accordance with policy.

‘It is time to start the healing process and we want to send our thoughts and prayers to the family.’

Then when students planned another walk-out on Thursday, parents say, the students were threatened with disciplinary action.

‘They scared the kids into staying in school today,’ father John Galife told News 12. ‘It’s a little bit of an abuse of power.’

He said students had a plan to leave class at 8am Thursday and rally outside, but he was told by text from one of his sons that they weren’t being allowed to leave and were threatened.