On September 17, 2010, a fight between two 16-year-old female students at Palmetto High School in Palmetto, Florida occurred in a field near the school. It was watched by a crowd of students, many who videotaped the incident. Three such videos were uploaded to YouTube, where they went viral.
April Newcomb, the mother of one of the girls, attended the brawl, where she cheered her daughter on. She was charged with child abuse, but later pleaded no contest to the charge in 2011.
On Friday, September 17, 2010, at approximately 2:30 p.m., April M. Newcomb, 39, drove her daughter to the 5400 Block of 17th Street West,[1] in a vacant field so she could fight a fellow student.[2] 50-60 students had gathered at the field to attend the fight,[3] which many recorded on their cell phones and video cameras.[4] Videos of the incident show Newcomb walking her barefoot daughter with her entourage through the field to confront another student,[5] [6] who was larger than Newcomb's daughter. The girls begin trading blows, with the other girl tumbling on top of Newcomb's daughter. As her daughter is taking punches to the face, Newcomb can be heard yelling: "Throw it! Throw it! Throw that bow!" The girls soon get off the ground, throwing slaps and punches and pulling hair, before knocking each other to the ground again. One of the students videotaping the brawl can be heard shouting, "Go for the headshot. The headshot." As the girls are rolling and grappling in the grass and Newcomb's daughter is being beaten and throttled by the other girl, Newcomb repeatedly encourages her daughter to fight, shouting words such as "don't fucking stop", "punch her in the fucking body" and "kick her ass". Near the end of the fight, the mother of the other girl arrived at the scene and approached Newcomb, asking her why she was not stopping the fight and conversing with her. The fight lasted for about five minutes and was broken up when the deputies arrived and the teenagers scattered.
Three videos of the brawl were posted on YouTube, all of which have since been taken down.[7] Further investigation revealed the girls, both 16 years old, were fighting over an old boyfriend.[8] [9] On September 20, 2010, the Manatee County Sheriff's Office interviewed the two girls and their mothers. Newcomb's daughter, who had told her mother she was planning to fight the other girl prior to the altercation, stated via phone that she and the girl had spoken at school that day, and that they apologized to each other and made amends. She also said the fight was mutually motivated. The other girl stated during an in-person interview that she had a previous confrontation with Newcomb's daughter on September 16, 2010, following which they decided to fight the next day via text messaging. On September 17, she went to school but Newcomb's daughter did not, and went to the field after school, where Newcomb drove her daughter to. In addition, she felt that she and Newcomb's daughter were forced to fight due to peer pressure from the students at school and that once they told everyone they were going to fight, they could not back down. The girl also said that when her mother, who later told police that she drove to the place where the fight was happening after hearing about it, had arrived, she yelled at the students to stop videotaping the fight and tried to break it up, but either she or Newcomb's daughter kicked her and she backed away. Just then, the fight ended as the police arrived. After the fight, the girl went home and called Newcomb's daughter, telling her that she would shake her hand at school on the next school day.
On September 22, 2010, April Newcomb was arrested for child abuse and jailed in Manatee County on a $15,000 bond, facing five years of prison. Dave Bristow, a spokesman for the sheriff's office, remarked that "The entire incident is disturbing, especially because the parent did not intervene" and "We're basically in shock a parent can sit there and watch their child and not intervene. … It's pretty obvious this is child abuse." He also said, "We've all seen videos of kids fighting, but to have a parent there, that's what pushed us over the edge. She egged on her daughter, did nothing to stop it." During questioning by police, Newcomb stated that her daughter had suffered from a skull fracture in a previous incident approximately two years before and she had attended the fight to make sure she was not hit in the back of the head. When asked why she did not break up the fight, she said "Of course, we're both wrong and I understand that, and I understand where y'all are coming from. I think unfortunately it was going to happen, no matter what."
On September 24, 2010, Palmetto Police Department officers interviewed two students who had witnessed the fight. Both reported that Newcomb had kept her daughter home from school that day to "train her how to fight"; one student also stated that Newcomb arrived at the field with a "cigarette and a drink".
In February 2011, Newcomb was facing a misdemeanor charge of contributing to the delinquency of a minor as a consequence of her actions during the brawl. She asked a Florida judge to dismiss the count. Despite the fight videos providing evidence to the contrary, Newcomb claimed that one of the videos only shows her saying "get up" to her child and argued that her "mere presence at the location of the consensual altercation, coupled with the statement 'get up,' does not constitute" the crime charged.
On May 24, 2011, Newcomb entered a no contest plea to the charge. She was adjudged guilty by Circuit Court Judge George K. Brown Jr., who sentenced Newcomb to 75 hours of community service and a one-day parenting class.[10]
Psychologist Jeff Gardere criticized Palmetto High School for failing to take action after the fight. Commenting on the incident to The Early Show co-anchor Maggie Rodriguez, he deemed Newcomb's behavior as "criminal", "atrocious" and "absolutely stupid", as well as stating:
And I think, at this point, she realizes what she did was wrong. She got caught up in the moment. Good parenting does not dictate that you egg your child on. You work with your child on and teach them conflict resolution skills. And, I have to point out, she was afraid her daughter might get hurt in the back of the head, because she had a previous head injury, and … she being hit with rabbit punches in the back of the head several times. So this is absolutely horrific. … The parenting was non-existent here. We've seen this before, where parents get caught up; they're living vicariously through their children. So I guess she wants her daughter to win because, in her own way, she's helping her daughter with her self-esteem. But it's absolutely the wrong thing. Maybe she wants herself to win to say she's got a champion on her hands. But it is absolutely atrocious.
Family therapist Terry Real told Good Morning America:
Not only did this mother cheer this kid on, but there are about 20, 30 other kids standing there. The atmosphere is absolutely medieval. It's like bear baiting for something. It's savage to watch it... What I think we need to understand is there's nothing light or serious about two kids throwing punches at each other like this. It's quite a serious matter.