A St. Louis judge has ruled that the 15-year-old girl charged with brutally beating Kaylee Gain, 16, and leaving her in a coma will not face adult charges.
This extraordinary decision comes after a juvenile officer testified earlier this month, claiming that Gain was a serial bully who tormented her attacker Maurnice Declue.
The officer’s testimony also alleged that Gain initiated the altercation by throwing the first punch, and had been suspended for fighting another girl just the day before the incident.
The judge followed the officer’s recommendation on Wednesday, keeping the case within the juvenile court system, Daily Mail reported.
Gain garnered national attention and support after footage of her confrontation with Declue outside their school on March 8 went viral.
The video showed Declue slamming Gain’s head into the pavement, resulting in a coma and severe brain injuries for Gain, who only began walking again two months later.
Warning – graphic content:
Resist the Mainstream reported late March on Gain’s slow recovery following the incident.
She had begun speech therapy and started taking short walks with hospital staff’s help. “She is still unable to ambulate on her own,” an attorney for Gain said at the time.
The 16-year-old said she had no memory of the attack.
Declue, charged with first-degree assault, has remained in juvenile detention while awaiting the decision on whether she would be tried as an adult.
Months after the viral video spread across social media, the judge considered the juvenile officer’s testimony, which challenged the initial narrative of the fight.
The officer referenced both girls’ school records, describing Gain as a serial bully who had targeted Declue and had been suspended the previous day for fighting, Daily Mail reported.
It was also stated that Declue was an honor student who had skipped the seventh grade and had maintained good behavior while in juvenile detention.
Declue’s mother tearfully said during the hearing that, “My family, my church, we all prayed for KG [Kaylee Gain]. I think [my daughter] was just defending herself, I don’t think she had any intent or thought this would happen.”
The defense called several witnesses, including both girls’ teachers, who testified that Declue had no prior behavioral issues and had been provoked by Gain.
Gain’s stepmother said the altercation was “a terrible choice made by two teen girls to solve their issues through violence” during the hearing.
She added that the fight “caused one to go too far with her bare hands and a concrete road.”
The stepmom described how Gain had to relearn to walk and talk, still suffers from memory loss, and now wears a custom-made helmet to protect her brain.
Gain’s family reported that she has “improved considerably” since the incident but still lacks part of her skull, necessitating further surgeries to reattach it.
Her father disclosed to the New York Post that the fight was prearranged, providing text messages as evidence.
He admitted that a tumultuous period of dysfunction and instability had plagued their family prior to the incident, corroborating the juvenile officer’s account.
The post Judge Rules Teen Attacker Who Brutally Beat Kaylee Gain In Horrific Viral Brawl Will Not Be Tried As An Adult appeared first on Resist the Mainstream.
Click this link for the original source of this article.
Author: Jordyn M.
This content is courtesy of, and owned and copyrighted by, https://resistthemainstream.org and its author. This content is made available by use of the public RSS feed offered by the host site and is used for educational purposes only. If you are the author or represent the host site and would like this content removed now and in the future, please contact USSANews.com using the email address in the Contact page found in the website menu.