9-year-old Minnesota girl attacked by four school bullies because she is not Muslim. School refuses to suspend her, victim’s mother says

• Shawna Larson, 33, said her daughter was attacked at school last month
• Teachers admitted that the ambush was because Larson’s daughter was “not Muslim.”

A Minnesota mother shared her horror after discovering her nine-year-old daughter was attacked in the schoolyard because she was “not a Muslim.”

Shawna Larson, 33, told Alpha News’ Liz Collins that her daughter was attacked on April 29 at Hidden Valley Elementary in Savage, Minnesota.

She said she was stunned when her daughter’s teachers approached her and told her that four classmates had attacked her “because of her race and her religion, because she was not Muslim.”

“That was pretty shocking to hear,” Larson added.

After Larson was first informed of the bullying incident, she said she was shocked by the bullying but was initially happy that it didn’t appear to have caused any real harm.

But the next day, she said, she realized it was worse than she feared as her daughter suffered severe bruising.

“That’s when we noticed she had a black eye and immediately took a photo of it,” she said.

“When she came home that day, I just looked at her and saw that she had bruises on her arms and a bruise on her back and all over her legs.”

After Larson realized the extent of her daughter’s injuries, she elicited details of the attack from her. The nine-year-old told her that the girls had pulled her to the ground by her hair and then punched and kicked her.

“She told me she tried to get up and the first time she tried to get up and get help – and I think it was the first time they took her to the ground – she tried to fight back,” she said.

“They had told her that they would hurt themselves if she hit or touched them and told the teacher that she had hurt them.”

Larson said her daughter admitted that “all I could do was lay there, mom.”

The mother sharply criticized her daughter’s school’s response to the attack, particularly pointing to camera footage that she said shows the group of thugs running out of the camera’s view to carry out the ambush.

“My daughter had done nothing to initiate this or cause this to happen. It was just because of her race and her religion. So that was a big deal,” she said.

Larson stressed that she believes there would be a nationwide outcry if a group of Christian students had done the same thing to a Muslim child.

“This would be all over the national news. You know, and it shouldn’t be like that. Our kids shouldn’t be in the media at all because of things like this,” she said.

“Every child should experience the same outrage because no child should be attacked on a playground and then have to feel unsafe at school because their attackers are still there.”

Larson said she decided to report the attack to Savage police because the school district failed to do so.

“The school just didn’t do anything. I understand that to a certain extent because the school has its own rules and laws that it has to abide by,” she continued.

“But the fact that this was racially and religiously motivated, the fact that they were never suspended or expelled from school or redirected to distance learning instead of continuing to stay in the classroom.”

The Burnsville-Eagan-Savage School District said in a statement to Alpha News that student safety was its “top priority” but declined to provide details.

“We cannot share private information about students, including details about student behavior or discipline,” the statement said.

“The safety of students and staff is our top priority and we take any incident that could endanger others very seriously.”

“We are committed to working with families in this effort and, as always, we follow our established policies and procedures regarding student conduct as outlined in the Board-approved Student Handbook.”

Larson concluded that while she did not want her daughter to change classes, she was forced to do so because two of her attackers shared a classroom with her.

“I thought if anyone had to change classes, it would have been the students who attacked my daughter because I feel like her changing is telling her that she did something wrong and that she did nothing wrong,” she said.

“She was just outside playing on the playground that day.”

“But ultimately, she just didn’t feel safe and we left the decision to her. She decided she wanted to move because she didn’t feel safe.”