Attorneys representing a 16-year-old student attacked at a Gilroy high school last year have sued the school district, claiming it's not doing enough to keep students safe on campus.
Video footage from March 2024 shows the female student being attacked in a hallway of Christopher High School. Another girl grabs her head and repeatedly punches her while others watch.
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WATCH HERE"My client here was basically jumped in the hallway of her school and beaten on the ground for nearly a minute and a half and no one came to intervene until the fight was well over," attorney Mark Boskovich said. "This has been a theme, unfortunately, with this district.”
Boskovich represents the girl and filed a civil suit against the Gilroy Unified School District, accusing it of not doing enough to protect students from criminal assaults on campus. He said the student was so traumatized that she never returned to school.
"Never felt safe again at school after this," Boskovich said. "Unfortunately has been homeschooled since this incident."
Boskovich said this wasn't the first time a Gilroy Unified student has been attacked by another student. His firm sued the district in June 2023 after a Solorsano Middle School student was assaulted in the quad area on campus. The 12-year-old girl suffered a concussion and transferred to another school. Boskovich said they settled that suit for $100,000.
In a statement, Gilroy Unified said it "takes all allegations of harassment, bullying, or abuse of any kind very seriously and is committed to the safety of all students and staff as its first priority," adding "all schools in the Gilroy Unified School District have a board-approved comprehensive school safety plan that is reviewed, updated and approved annually."
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NBC Bay Area talked to some Christopher High School students who said they have seen students getting into fights on campus. In May 2024, a student was stabbed in the boys' locker room.
"We are hoping that with these recent lawsuits that eventually the schools are going to start putting in more resources into this particular issue," Boskovich said.
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