Donations have passed $265,000 to a GoFundMe for Kaylee Gain, a 15- or 16-year-old St. Louis girl (reports on her age vary) who’s been in critical condition for days following a savage beating by a fellow teen girl steps from their high school. This comes as Missouri’s attorney general is calling for Kaylee’s assailant, who’s 15, to be tried as an adult, and blamed the schools diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) policies for the attack..

Among the largest gift to the GoFundMe is $10,000 from the New York billionaire Bill Ackman, a fierce opponent of DEI initiatives.

Kaylee was grievously wounded in Friday, a few blocked from Hazelwood East High School in St. Louis. A disturbing video shows two teenagers – Kaylee, who is white, and an unnamed Black girl – engage with each other and start to fight. It’s unclear who swung first and whether or not one person provoked the other, but other fights between teens broke out around the two teens as the situation escalated. Eventually, Kaylee’s opponent – who has yet to be identified – brought Kaylee to the ground before grabbing her head and bashing it into the pavement multiple times while repeatedly calling her a “bitch”. Kaylee is then left alone on the pavement, convulsing, while someone films her and other fights continue around her  

Police and EMTs arrived shortly, and Kaylee was brought to a local hospital. The assailant, who was arrested, is now being held by St. Louis County Family Court on assault charges.

According to the GoFundMe set up for her and her family, Kaylee “was admitted to one of the local hospitals in Saint Louis with a skull fracture and frontal lobe damage.”

“She has major brain bleeding and swelling and is in critical condition,” the GoFundMe page reads. “Kaylee is fighting hard to stay alive and heal but this is only the beginning of a very uphill battle for Kaylee and her family. We will not know the extent of the brain damage that has occurred until she wakes up but the path to recovery will be extremely hard on the family, not only mentally but financially. Her mother and father are staying by her side night and day hoping to bring her back to the Kaylee they know and love. Your support would help with lost wages and piling up medical bills due to intensive care treatment.”

As of Thursday , the GoFundMe had raised more than  $266,000 in donations, most of them small.

The Missouri attorney general, Andrew Bailey, in addition to calling on Kaylee’s assailant to be tried as an adult, added that she should be charged with murder if Kaylee doesn’t survive. He also pointed to last month’s deadly shooting at a Kansas City Chiefs victory parade, in which one woman died and nearly two dozen people were injured, as another example of juvenile criminals run-amok. Two underage teens were charged in that shooting.  

“We’ve got to reform our juvenile system to ensure that these sorts of issues are addressed,” Mr. Bailey a Republican, said. “I think there needs to be some accountability in our juvenile system. People are starting to notice that and it’s causing problems across the State of Missouri.”

In an appearance on Newsmax on Thursday, Mr. Bailey went further, blaming Hazelwood East High School’s “radical DEI programs” as possibly fomenting the climate that led to the fight. 

The school promoted DEI, he argued, “in place of school safety … In other words, they are more in favor of racial divisiveness than in having school resource officers on their campuses.” 

Mr. Bailey went on to claim that in 2021, the school, which is overwhelmingly Black, “booted” police officers patrolling the school off campus after they refused to take the school district’s DEI training.  

“So what role did this radical divisive DEI indoctrination program play in preventing a police officer from being present and detecting this and/or from causing the racial divisiveness that may have motivated this fight? I think the school has an enormous amount of culpability. Look at their statement. There’s no moral clarity there. They don’t mention the victim once.”

The school’s statement, issued after the fight, did not take sides, and attributed the incident to “bullying.” 

“It is a tragedy anytime children are hurt,” the statement read. “Bullying and fighting in the community is an issue for which we all need to take ownership and work towards a resolution for the sake of our children. The Hazelwood School District offers our sincerest condolences to everyone involved.”

Parents told the St. Louis Post Dispatch that safety at the school had been a problem “for a long time.” A sophomore named Shalimar Ross told the newspaper on Monday that Kaylee had been bullied recently, and she was encouraged by a peer last week to “fight back.”

She added that, now that the story was spreading nationally, “we don’t know what to believe and what not to.”

One student, who declined to give his name, told the Post Dispatch on Thursday that he knew Kaylee and her attacker, and that the incident was over a “petty fight.”

“I know Kaylee was a good person. I know the other girl was too,” he said.

Missouri Senator Josh Hawley, a Republican, has also called for Kaylee’s assailant to be tried as an adult.

Missouri’s lieutenant governor, Mike Kehoe, also took the time to comment on the tragic event by calling it “insanity.”

“This complete disregard for human life is unacceptable,” Mr. Kehoe wrote on Facebook. “We are praying for the victim’s recovery.”

It’s not yet known whether the suspect in question will be tried as a minor or an adult, but – at 15 years old – she could be tried as an adult if that’s pursued by prosecutors and a judge agrees that to be the appropriate course of action. 

“Upon its own motion or that of any party in the case of a child of at least 12 accused of a felony, the juvenile court may order a hearing to consider whether to dismiss the delinquency petition and transfer the child for adult prosecution,” reads a revised statute of Missouri. “Before the hearing, a written report on the child ‘s history, record, offense, rehabilitation prospects, etc., must be prepared for the juvenile court’s consideration.”

In other words, a court could decide to try the teenage assailant as an adult if her assault charge is considered first degree assault – though it’s unclear exactly what her charges are, at the moment.

Many people have taken to social media to share their opinions on the violent attack, with some commentators on social media injecting race into the conversation and calling the incident a “hate crime.” 

“Black teen girl savagely beats white teen girl into critical condition.  Fixed your headline for you. Had it been the reverse, you can bet your headline would have read differently,” one X user wrote.

Others are saying the tragedy is being exploited as a race issue when there’s no evidence yet that race was a factor in the fight. 

“A few days ago, a video was shared of a horrific assault of a white girl (Kaylee Gain) by a black girl near her HS. Missouri Republicans dug in-blaming the tragedy on the school’s DEI efforts, pushing their school choice agenda, and claiming heartache & sympathy for the victim,” another X user wrote while sharing screenshots of various posts on X. “Yesterday afternoon a 14-year-old black boy named Justin Brooks was stabbed & died 1 block from his middle school while walking home. Nothing but silence from these republicans. This is why I will never believe their ‘condolences’ or ability to care. ONLY if it fits their agenda.”

So far, there has been no arrest in Justin’s killing, though law enforcement officials say they believe he knew his killer.