In video, nonbinary student describes fight in school bathroom
HOUSTON >> An altercation at an Oklahoma public school involving a 16-yearold nonbinary student who died the next day began after the student “poured water” on girls who had been making fun of the teenager, according to a body camera video interview released by the Owasso Police Department late Friday.
The video of the 16-yearold student, Nex Benedict, talking to an Owasso officer provided the fullest account yet of what took place inside the girls' bathroom Feb. 7. The altercation drew national scrutiny after gay and transgender rights groups focused attention on Nex's death as an example of the dangers faced by gender-nonconforming students.
The interview, which lasted about 20 minutes and took place at a hospital, provided new details of the confrontation at the West Campus of Owasso High School. Nex, who used they and them pronouns with peers, described how they “blacked out” while being beaten on the floor of the bathroom by three girls who had previously mocked Nex and their friends “because of the way that we dress.”
“We were laughing. And they had said something like, `Why do they laugh like that?' They were talking about us in front of us. And so I went up there and I poured water on them” from a plastic water bottle, Nex told the officer. “And then all three of them came at me,” Nex said.
The department also released surveillance video from inside the school showing students, including Nex, entering the bathroom and, separately, Nex walking through the halls with a staff member after the confrontation.
And the department provided audio of the 911 calls made by Sue Benedict, Nex's grandmother and guardian, on the day of the altercation and then on Feb. 8 as she urgently sought an ambulance for Nex.
Sue Benedict told the dispatcher around 1 p.m. that Nex kept saying they had a headache and Sue Benedict was unsure if it was from Nex's head injury. Nex hit their head on the bathroom floor, Sue Benedict said, describing the altercation the previous day.
Sue Benedict told the dispatcher that Nex took medication at night for anxiety and “mood swings” but that Nex had not taken any that day. Asked whether Nex took illicit drugs, Sue Benedict said no, although Nex “has vaped.”
The videos, while providing more information, did not answer the question of how Nex died. The Police Department has said that the death is still under investigation but that preliminary results of an autopsy found Nex “did not die as a result of trauma.” The state medical examiner's office said its report on the autopsy and toxicology results would be made public when it was ready.
The death of a nonbinary student after an altercation at school prompted renewed scrutiny of Oklahoma's restrictive policies for LGBTQ students — including new laws regarding bathroom usage and barring gender-transition care for minors.
The state superintendent of schools, Ryan Walters, who has been criticized for his anti-transgender rhetoric, said the death was a tragedy but did not alter his views, including on bathroom use or discussions of gender.