BREVARD COUNTY, Fla. — A letter written by a state representative to the Department of Education is stirring up controversy and prompting a police investigation.
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Rep. Randy Fine is asking for an investigation into what he heard was an attack by a transgender girl on another girl in the restroom at Johnson Middle School in Melbourne.
It’s not clear if there even was an attack, and Fine said he doesn’t know either.
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It’s something he said he heard from a dozen parents of children at the school. He said parents weren’t getting answers from the district about it, so he decided to take it to the state.
“Over the last 24 hours, I’ve gotten a whole lot of calls from parents, maybe because school started (Wednesday), concerned about the alleged incident at the school,” Fine told Channel 9.
Read his letter in the tweet below:
In the letter to the Board of Education Commissioner Manny Diaz, Fine requested “immediate assistance in investigating an alleged sexual assault between a ‘transgender girl’ and another girl that allegedly took place in the bathroom.”
However, the school district said the incident never happened.
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“There’s no evidence, no witnesses,” said Brevard Public Schools Chief Strategic Communications Officer Russell Bruhn. “There’s no victim who’s come forward, no parents that have come forward.”
The Melborune Police Department had no report of it either and had heard nothing about it until Thursday.
Bruhn said the letter from Fine makes the school look bad, and that Fine owes staff an apology.
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“It’s irresponsible,” Bruhn said. “It’s embarrassing for the county to have a representative do this.”
Fine said he doesn’t trust the district. He said it was sanctioned in 2020 by the state for failing to report an alleged sexual assault. While he doesn’t know if the allegation about the restroom attack are true, he felt this was the best way to make sure it’s looked into.
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“I can’t tell the school district what to do, but what I could do is reach out to my partners of the Florida Department of Education, and ask them to do an independent investigation,” Fine said.
Police said they are looking into the issue. The school resource officer made some inquiries and sent a detective to the school on Thursday.
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