Court records detail alleged attack on KCK 11-year-old after she was called racial slurs
Newly released court records detail what happened in the moments before an 11-year-old Kansas City, Kansas, girl was allegedly attacked by a boy who called her racial slurs.
When Kansas City, Kansas, police were called Aug. 28 to an apartment on 65th Terrace, they found 11-year-old Nevaeh Thomas sitting on the ground “drifting in and out of consciousness,” according to an affidavit detailing the incident that left the girl bloodied and hospitalized. The affidavit was obtained Wednesday through a request by The Star.
The officer described her as having a cut across her cheekbone and a swollen lip. Photos of the girl later shared by her family reveal the same wounds.
Nevaeh’s mother, Brandi Stewart, previously said her daughter was visiting friends at a Shawnee apartment when a white 12-year-old boy who lived in the complex started yelling racist epithets at the girls, all of whom are Black.
According to the affidavit, Nevaeh and a group of girls and boys were standing outside the apartment when they got into an argument. At some point, one of the boys started calling Nevaeh racial slurs; she followed him back to the apartment.
The boy then went inside and came back “brandishing a large kitchen knife,” according to the affidavit. Then he went inside again and brought out a wooden closet rod that he used to strike Nevaeh in the face.
The boy later told police that Nevaeh allegedly hit him in the back of the head before he struck her.
The boy said that when he went back into the apartment, Nevaeh and her friends started throwing sticks and rocks at the door trying to get inside, court records show.
“He advised that he went to the patio while holding a wooden pole and attempted to apologize to the girls to get them to leave,” the affidavit reads.
The boy told police that the girls began hitting him again, at which point he admitted to striking Nevaeh with the pole.
Neither Nevaeh nor any of her friends hit the boy, one of the girls told police.
Nevaeh, who was hospitalized in the attack, lost a tooth, needed multiple stitches to close up the cut on her face and also suffered a serious concussion, according to court records.
The boy has since been charged with one count of aggravated battery and was on house arrest.
The suspect’s name has not been released by Johnson County officials because he is a minor.
Nevaeh’s family’s lawyer, LaRonna Lassiter Saunders, has said that they not only want to see justice for Nevaeh but to bring about change in society.
“We need to stop hate racism,” Nevaeh read during a press conference days after the attack. “It’s wrong and it’s wrong to hurt people with words and weapons.”
The Star’s Katie Bernard contributed.
