EXCLUSIVE: Student With Special Needs Attacked Outside Of School
By Elizabeth Hur
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) -- An Eyewitness News Exclusive -- A special needs student is badly beaten outside of school and rushed to the hospital.
The attack happened around 3 p.m. Thursday afternoon outside the Jules Mastbaum Vocational Technical School in Kensington.
"I feel very upset. I did not want to see my baby's face look like that, at all," Tracey Brown said.
Brown shared with Eyewitness News several heart-breaking pictures, showing her 14-year-old son, Tyree, in the intensive care unit at St. Christopher's Hospital with severe eye and facial injuries.
"Very very bad, I couldn't hardly look at it," Brown recalled.
We're told Tyree is a special needs student, a freshman at Mastbaum High School, badly beaten Thursday afternoon by a fellow student. Police sources identified the 18-year-old senior as Jahlear Harris.
According to sources, just after school, Tyree was standing in the corner, waiting to board his bus home when sources say Harris knocked him to the ground and continued to punch him until school police intervened.
"It's just hard because he is not a bad kid at all. I don't know what could have made him go off like this," Harris' guardian said.
A woman who only identified herself as Harris' legal guardian said she cannot imagine what could have gone wrong but called the incident baffling and tragic.
"I'm sorry to the parent, I really don't know anything yet but I really hope that the child does well, I'm really shaken up," Harris' guardian added.
Brown said, "I just hope that my son feels better but right now, he's going to stay in there for like three or four days."
Police sources say charges of Aggravated Assault and related offenses have been filed against the 18-year-old. As of Thursday night, the motive remained under investigation.
