Deerfield Beach Middle School - first, they set a kid on fire, now, boy curbstomps girl

[link to www.sun-sentinel.com]

A 15-year-old girl was viciously attacked by a boy outside Deerfield Beach Middle School on Wednesday afternoon and remains hospitalized with critical injuries, according to the Broward Sheriff's Office.

Investigators have arrested a boy they say punched the girl, then smashed her head on the pavement and continued to kick her and stomp on her head with steel-toe boots as she lay unconscious, said Sheriff's Office spokesman Mike Jachles.

Josie Lou Ratley, 15 of Deerfield Beach, an eighth-grader at Deerfield Beach Middle, was taken to Broward General Medical Center in Fort Lauderdale. Jachles described her condition as "extremely critical."

"This is nothing short of a savage beating," Jachles said. "She was unconscious and defenseless. A teacher had to physically pull this boy off of her."

Investigators were interviewing Wayne Treacy, 15, of Pompano Beach Wednesday night and plan to charge him with attempted murder, Jachles said. Treacy was being held at Broward's Juvenile Assesment Center.

The attack comes just five months after Deerfield Beach Middle was rocked by an incident in which a group of students were accused of dousing their classmate, Michael Brewer, 15, with rubbing alcohol and setting him on fire at an apartment complex.

Wednesday's incident unfolded at 2:49 p.m., just after school dismissal, at the school bus loop on the east side of the campus at 701 SE Sixth Ave.

Jachles said the 15-year-old suspect in the beating is a ninth-grader at Deerfield Beach High School and went to the middle school intending to harm the girl. There were early reports that comments were circulating that had enraged the boy, Jachles said, but those details were still being checked and he did not know what led to the attack.

School district officials would not comment Wednesday night, saying they were still awaiting information from investigators and trying to determine what happened.

One parent who was with her son Wednesday night as he attended swim practice with the city's recreational league at the school, said she was shocked by the attack.

"It's horrendous, of course. Any kind of teenage violence is horrible. It's tragic all the way around," said Debbie Hunter, of Boca Raton. "This was probably a personal attack," she said.

It was in October that Deerfield Beach Middle, a magnet school that draws students from all over Broward County, was rocked by the attack on Brewer.

A group of teens confronted Brewer at an apartment complex, doused him with rubbing alcohol and lit him on fire, authorities said. Brewer suffered second- and third-degree burns over most of his body and was hospitalized for months.

Three teens, who were Brewer's classmates at Deerfield Beach Middle, have been charged with attempted murder and await trial.

Brewer's grandmother, Reenie Brewer, recently launched a crusade against teen violence and on Wednesday evening issued a statement in response to the 14-year-old girl's beating that read: "My heart goes out to the parents of both of these children. This is another tap on the shoulder that says ‘wake up.' We need to start paying attention. How many more children are going to be hurt before we start tackling this problem head on?"