The mother of the Dublin High School student who was bizarrely attacked by a group of people, including a parent, in the school locker room last week, is speaking out and calling for better security at the school.
The case has made multiple headlines this week due to its strangeness, and we still have no idea of what the motive was. But after a high school football player was attacked and badly beaten in the school locker room last Friday, we are now getting some new details from the boy’s mother.
Cherie Barfield says her son was the victim in the attack, and he is now recovering at home. Barfield owns the Dublin restaurant Cherie’s Southern Kitchen, and she tells ABC 7 she wishes she could be home with him but she is keeping the restaurant running. “This week, I said I’m going to try to recover and reset and it’s just so much, we really need to be closed at this moment,” Barfield says.
Bay Area News Group also spoke to Barfield, and identified the victim as 14-year-old Dasanni Goodspeed, a freshman who had just started school at Dublin High.
Barfield says she is planning to host a Unity Prayer Brunch at the restaurant on Sunday, to raise money for the Dublin High School football program. She tells ABC 7 that she hopes “we can give them enough money to where they can hire full-time staff to be on site and present so this doesn’t happen to anyone’s child ever again.”
The school has put out a statement saying, “Following this incident, we have increased adult presence in the locker room area at Dublin High and adjusted access to this area of campus.” The school says it has also asked the Dublin Police Department to maintain a presence at the school.
The incident happened Friday, and initial reports suggested the teenager had been attacked by five adults. It later came out that one adult, a parent of another student, appeared to have been involved, and the other assailants were between 16 and 19 years old.
Barfield now says that the incident began with her son being confronted by a female student and her mother, but it’s not clear what the confrontation was about.
The boy ran into the locker room, and was allegedly pursued by the five individuals in hoodies.
“It started initially one-on-one, the guy sucker punched my son and broke his nose while he was sitting down looking at his phone, and my son got up to fight back and then they all jumped him,” Barfield tells ABC 7. She also says that her son’s “blood was everywhere, all over the floor,” and that he was screaming for help.
Police had said that a football coach and some other students intervened to stop the beating.
Barfield adds, without further explanation, “I want everyone to know that my son was mistaken identity — it wasn’t even my son that they wanted but one of his friends.”
No arrests have been made, but a rep for Dublin High School tells ABC 7 that the unidentified female student who brought the assailants to the school has been suspended.
Barfield told Bay Area News Group that she is planning to take legal action against the school, and has asked that the girl be banned from campus and removed from the district entirely.
Previously: Parent and Four Teens Attack at Dublin High Student, Football Players Break It Up
Photo via OneDublin.org
