Caught On Camera: Student Body-Slammed, Attacked On Campus At Grant High School
SACRAMENTO (CBS13) — A gruesome fight was caught on camera Monday at Grant High School.
The victim, Jovanny Lopez, 15, says he has no idea why he was jumped while walking home from school.
The cell phone video is hard to watch. It was captured on a student's cell phone. Lopez said the fight happened behind the school's auditorium.
The video shows a fight involving at least three people, including Lopez.
"I was walking through the parking lot when I got jumped from behind and thrown to the floor and that's when those two boys started punching on me," he said.
Lopez and his mom Jessica asked CBS13 to shield their faces during an on-camera interview. They say they're afraid of a repeat attack.
"I imagine the worst happening to my son," said Jessica Lopez.
Lopez says he knows the two students who attacked him, but he doesn't know what motivated the attack. Lopez said at one point he tried to fight back.
"While we were fighting, he picked me up from my legs, and threw me to the concrete," Lopez said. "I hit my head, and I was unconscious."
In the video, you see Lopez get body-slammed onto the concrete. What comes next is even harder to stomach. One of the students stomps on Lopez's face, and blood goes everywhere.
Even for Lopez, watching what happened to him is hard.
"I didn't realize how bad it was until I saw my head rebound off the concrete," he said.
Lopez says at one point, a student brought out a small, sharp knife and threatened his life.
For a few moments, the video shows Lopez knocked unconscious.
"I don't remember getting up, I lost my memory for like six or seven minutes," Lopez said.
Lopez now has cuts and bruises on his neck, and it's no surprise he often gets dizzy. He says it's hard for him to focus, but he's expected to be okay.
"Thank God my son is alive," said Jessica Lopez.
She says she got the call about her son from one of his friends, not the school, and rushed to meet him at the hospital.
"He had blood in his mouth, pain in his head, he had a huge red thing in the back," she said.
She calls it a mother's worst nightmare.
"I told the principal this is not the first time something happened here," Jessica Lopez said. "I asked, "Do you want to send my son next time to the cemetery or something?' "
The district released a statement about the fight, which reads:
"Twin Rivers wants to make it perfectly clear that the safety of our students is and always will be of the highest priority. Under no circumstances does the District condone or accept any violent behavior on our campuses. We take this incident very seriously and want to assure the community that we are deeply committed to each student feeling safe, welcomed and appreciated at all of our schools. This troubling incident does not reflect the safe and nurturing learning environment in our schools. Twin Rivers Police Department has completed the investigation and we have taken appropriate action guided by district policy and our commitment to campus safety."