Exclusive: Girl Taped Throwing 1st Punch In Violent Middle School Brawl Speaks
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HOMESTEAD (CBSMiami) – A 14-year-old Homestead Middle School who was captured on cell phone throwing the first punch and ganging up on a fellow student during a violent brawl is speaking out along with her mother, saying he was enticed by the victim to fight her.
"We got out to school and that's when she called me out and that's when I got there and that's when the girls started doing it," said the seventh grade student whose mother did not want her to show all of her face.
In an exclusive interview with CBS4'S Peter D'Oench, she said, "She called me out. She was walking toward me. That's why I threw the punch."
CLICK HERE To Watch Peter D'Oench's Report
The student and her mother were responding to CBS4's original exclusive story on Friday in which cell phone video showed the seventh grade student and fellow students pummeling 14-year-old Angelina Padron and dragging her by the hair.
One of Padron's family members told D'Oench, "it makes me mad. With any family member like this, it would make you mad."
That family member did not want to show all of his face but he said he felt the girls attacking his loved ones should have received a stiffer punishment from the school district.
They were given citations and suspensions and will have their records erased after performing community service.
A school district spokesperson said Padron's suspension was later overturned. Her family had pressed for criminal charges to be filed.
"What makes me mad is they were waiting for her outside so they could videotape it and put it up on YouTube," said the family member.
The girl who threw the first punch and her mother released new cell phone video that shows a different side of Angelina Padron. She is seen walking up to one girl recently and punching her. That video is violent. Padron, who is seen in a white blouse and blue shorts, struggles with and slaps the other girl.
"She's in a gang," said the seventh grader of Padron. "She smokes and drinks. The gang who she was with was setting her up to fight people."
The girl's mother also did not want to show all of her face but she agrees with her daughter.
"Angelina is a troublemaker," she said. "All I know is she's in a gang and starts a lot of problems. You just saw video of her starting it up with another girl.
Padron's loved one says she launched that attack because she was taunted.
"What I heard is that they were passing by and yelling racial slurs, calling her white trash and white whore and something like that, white B."
Florida City Police are investigating the seventh grade girl's mother for allegedly threatening Padron's mother three times if she pressed charges against her daughter. She says she captured video of one of these alleged threats and Florida City Police say an arrest of the mother is pending.
The mother denies the charges.
"I never threatened or walked up to her where a daughter was in the car," she said.
Padron's family member said, "You see her in the car, making the threat. Who else was it?"
He also said he believed Homestead Middle School was too easy on the girls who beat his loved one. He said they were the same girls posting messages on Facebook identifying themselves as a member of a gang, throwing up signs.
The seventh grade girl's mother does admit no one should be fighting as seen in the call phone videos.
"She should not have been involved in a fight at all," she said.
Angelina Padron's family members have started a GoFundMe campaign on line so they can move away from their neighborhood. They say they need at least $4,000 to relocate and have raised just over $1,000 so far.
The seventh grade girl's mother says she has pulled her daughter out of Homestead Middle School and is looking for a new school that she can attend.