No charges will be filed in connection with the fight that happened the day before Nex Benedict, a nonbinary high school student, died by suicide in Oklahoma, the district attorney investigating the case said Thursday.
The fight in the high school bathroom appeared to be an “instance of mutual combat,” Stephen Kunzweiler, Tulsa County’s district attorney, said in a statement announcing his decision not to charge anyone.
Kunzweiler also noted that Owasso police officers discovered “some brief notes” that were written by Nex and “appeared to be related to the suicide.”
“Although the notes do not make any reference to the earlier fight or difficulties at school, the parents indicated that Benedict reported being picked upon for various reasons while at school,” Kunzweiler wrote in the release, adding that the contents of the notes would not be released.
Nex was transgender and used he and they pronouns.
All of the students involved in the fight were minors, the DA said, adding that “if charges were justified, those charges would be handled as a delinquent child cause of action in a juvenile court of law.”
“I do not have a reasonable belief that the State of Oklahoma could sustain its burden of proof beyond a reasonable doubt if charges were presented for prosecution,” Kunzweiler wrote.
Nex, 16, got into a fight with other students at the Owasso High School West Campus, northeast of Tulsa, on Feb. 7. His mother took him to the hospital and called police to report the fight.
According to body camera video from a police interview at the hospital, Nex said three students “jumped” him after he threw water on them because they were bullying him and his friend for the way they dressed.
Nex had reportedly told his mom that he faced bullying at school because of his gender identity.
Police were investigating whether his death on Feb. 8, which was later determined to be by suicide, was at all connected to the fight the day before.
Preliminary information from an autopsy…
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