There’s No Way I’m Buying That This Child’s Injuries Came From A ‘Playground Fall’

If your child came home with the injuries that AvaLynn Harris is sporting in this photo, would you ever believe that it happened when your child took a tumble on the playground at school?

I wouldn’t.

Now, I feel like I have to say here that I am not in the habit of believing the worst of people, no matter how jaded I come across, nor do I go around trying to sniff out lies and deception. I’m not one of those moms that believes the world is out to get me or my kid and that my child can do no wrong. I’m actually pretty astounded whenever someone happens to do something gnarly, or even something just kind of jacked up.

AvaLynn’s mother, Lacey, is calling shenanigans too, and I don’t blame her at all. The Raw Story reports that according to Lacey, AvaLynn – who is five – came home last week with the messed up injuries you can see in the photo.

AvaLynn attends Arlington Elementary School in Pascagoula, Mississippi, and when Harris wanted to you know, find out what the fuck happened to her daughter’s face, she was told that AvaLynn fell down. Which I guess I could see, if she fell down a set of concrete steps onto someone’s boot.

Instead, Lacey insists that her daughter is telling the truth when she says that another child on the playground kicked her in the face until she fell off of a slide, according to the Justice for AvaLynn facebook page:

AvaLynn informed Lacey that she was assaulted by another student: that she was kicked repeatedly in the face until she fell off of the slide on the school’s playground. The school informed Lacey were no teachers present when the incident occurred, and because of that, no one could prove whether or not another student had harmed Ava.

This really bothers me. Of course at this juncture, no one can really prove anything. But anytime my kid’s been hurt at school, even if it’s just her scraping a knee out on the blacktop, there’s always a detailed timeline and a piece of paper for me to sign. Not a lukewarm response like this one from the school district:

“A student was injured while playing on the playground at Arlington Elementary School Tuesday afternoon. School officials responded to the situation. The parent was contacted and the student received medical treatment. No other children were involved in the incident. The Pascagoula School District remains committed to the safety of all its students.”

For her part, Lacey Harris has filed a police report, but the police are reluctant to do anything about it, saying:

“The mother alleges another child kicked her child on the slide. Right now, there’s no indication something criminal took place. I have spoken with school security, and an assistant superintendent is investigating the matter.”

Now, I don’t have any kind of medical expertise, and I’ll fully admit that my reaction to the picture above is pretty instinctual. If my child came home at five-years-old, which is plenty old enough to be able to pretty accurately relay an incident, and told me that someone hurt her, I’d be distrustful and pissed off, too.

I keep going back and forth. I’ll shut the window with that picture and remind myself that my kid’s come home with some pretty nasty bruises that everyone readily agrees is the result of a common condition known as being a little kid. Then I pull the photo up again and I just can not fathom any accident that would cause that kind of horrorshow.

(Image: Facebook)