7th Upper Darby Student Arrested in Bullying Attack

Police arrested a seventh Upper Darby High School student Tuesday morning on charges of kidnapping and assaulting a 13-year-old student.

The seven students who attend the Opportunity Center at the high school kidnapped, beat, and hung Nadin Khoury upside down from a tree until he fell face first, Upper Darby police superintendent Michael Chitwood said in a press conference Monday.

Chitwood said this is the worst case of bullying police have ever seen. He said everyone is lucky they did not kill the 13-year-old.

"They could have punched a hole in his neck," Chitwood said.

Police rushed into the school Monday morning and took six students -- aged 13 to 17 -- out in handcuffs. Police arrested the seventh student Tuesday when he showed up for class.

Chitwood said that cell phone video from one of the attackers shows the students shoving Khoury in a tree upside down and then hanging him by his coat on a wrought iron fence. A woman walked by as the kid was screaming for help and she did nothing.

“They started beating me up and putting me on the gate and I had got caught on the gate,” Nadin Khoury told NBC 10.

“From then on they just started punching me in the stomach and then when I got down, they started stomping me,” Khoury said.

“I find it offensive when members of the community stand up and talk about the cops not doing (anything) when not one person called 9-1-1," said Chitwood.

Khoury did not have any serious physical injuries, said Chitwood.

School superintendent Lous DeVleiger issued a statement that said, in part: 

“All of those involved were members of our alternative school program that is located in an isolated facility away from the high school proper for students who have exhibited poor decisions in the past and are therefore removed from the high school to protect the regular high school student population. This alternative program has been very successful in helping to rehabilitate many students."

All seven of the accused students are scheduled to face a judge in Delaware County on Wednesday.  They're facing assault and kidnapping charges.
 


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