ST. LOUIS, Missouri — New information is starting to emerge from the Hazelwood School district that sheds new light on the shocking fight that put 16-year-old Kaylee Gain in the hospital with a severe head injury earlier this month.
A Hazelwood District spokesperson confirms that on March 7, the day before the violent attack that injured Kaylee Gain, there was a separate fight on school property. A uniformed guard was actively involved in breaking it up. The spokesperson says at least one student was suspended as a result of that fight.
While the district wouldn't name the suspended student, an attorney for the suspect tells 5 On Your Side it was Kaylee Gain.
"The other juvenile involved in this was suspended from Hazelwood East High School the day before, the day before this all happened for fighting," said Greg Smith, an attorney representing the other juvenile student who was seen in viral videos fighting with Gain.
Gain's suspension offers some new context around the time and location of the incident, which occurred roughly half a mile off school grounds. Smith said that initial fight was the precursor to the fight the next day that left Gain critically injured.
"She was suspended from school for fighting someone else," Smith said. "And despite that, found her way back towards the neighborhood around the high school the following day at dismissal time."
The other girl involved in the March 8 altercation appears in videos to be Black. She is facing charges in a juvenile proceeding and remains in custody in St. Louis County.
After the alarming video gained national media attention, Attorney General Andrew Bailey attempted to inject divisive racial politics into the story. He announced he was launching an "investigation" into the school district in an attempt to somehow link the altercation to the administration's DEI 'Statement of Solidarity' from four years ago.
In Bailey's initial letter, he inaccurately assumed school hallways were no longer being patrolled by guards, and he attempted to pin the absence of School Resource Officers on the district's Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion programs. Local police and the school district later refuted both claims.
Bailey used the tragedy to score quick a TV hit on Fox News where he accused school district administrators of "promoting this culture of violence."
"They attend a school that has a history of promoting DEI programs that promote racial divisiveness at the expense of having uniformed police in their schools," Bailey incorrectly told cable show host Laura Ingraham.
She amplified the racially charged rhetoric by telling her audience the video showing a Black girl attack a white girl was an example of "rage spilling out across America, especially in inner cities."
Sen. Josh Hawley quickly heralded Bailey's maneuver and shared a link to the Fox News story, which promoted it as an "exclusive." However, the entire premise was based on false information.
Cindy Ormsby, an attorney representing the Hazelwood School District, dissected Bailey's false claims one-by-one in a strongly worded letter. She scolded Bailey's "incomplete" investigation, saying it's "dangerous and will likely be an embarrassment to you and your office when and if the facts become known to you and the general public."
In his reply, Bailey sidestepped the bulk of her clarifications and sarcastically brushed off the more minor criticisms of his investigation, blaming those errors on the media.
"You allege 'inaccuracies,'" Bailey wrote. "The most egregious 'error' you identify is an incorrect date reference that was reported in local media.'"
Bailey's confession revealed the flimsy nature of his investigation, most notably, that he was relying on unvetted information he gleaned from third parties. The only references to local news reports Bailey included in his letter were references to outdated stories from three years ago.
"I did not believe that that was his most egregious error," Ormsby clarified Wednesday morning. "I believe his most egregious error in his original letter to the school district was the jump to the conclusion that the fight between the two high school females was based on race. And that it was because SRO officers were not in the building, which he believes for some reason was a result of the school district's emphasis on DEI policies."
The Missouri NAACP also took notice of Bailey's eagerness to pounce on the viral video showing a white girl being beaten. They issued a letter asking Bailey where he was when other Black students were killed in fights, or were subjected to blatantly racist discrimination.
"The NAACP has long observed the absence of proactive measures by the Attorney General's office to combat discrimination, particularly in instances of racial harassment within Missouri schools where the victims are Black," the letter said. "Attorney General Bailey has not deployed any resources to prevent discrimination in Republic Missouri where there is an ongoing situation involving a 13-year-old Black girl being called the N-word, assaults against her and other non-white students, and where the school district’s response has been evasive and dismissive."
"Bailey’s blind eye to racism when the victim is Black is telling, but the use of the investigative power in his office to lift the harm suffered by a Caucasian student while ignoring the Black victims is nothing short of Jim Crow,” NAACP President Nimrod Chapel said.
Teachers and school leaders are also facing a flood of violent threats after Bailey suggested the school's DEI policies had something to do with inspiring or allowing the fight.
"We're looking into whether or not there's any sort of legal action we can take to stop him from being such a bully, and using his office just for political purposes," Ormsby said.
She said any other lawyer would face serious consequences if they filed or published false information in such a reckless, unfounded manner.
"He's violated the rules of ethics that we have as attorneys," Ormsby said. "You can't just make random allegations because you have some other motive to do so, and not have done a cursory investigation to make sure that those facts are correct.
Attorneys who file false accusations or submit phony evidence can face a variety of consequences from the courts or the Bar Association, including a motion for sanctions or financial penalties.
"The district is looking at all with all of its options here. It's not backing down," Ormsby said. "We're looking at whether or not we'll file an ethics complaint."