A viral Facebook video showing a mother goading her daughter to fight another girl at Les Schwab Amphitheater in Bend led to online outcry and, later, criminal charges.
Videos posted Tuesday depict a fight on April 12 between a 13-year-old girl and a 12-year-old girl.
The mother of the 12-year-old, Sierra Whitney Brown, and her boyfriend, Charles James Durand, can be heard shouting encouragement to the girl.
“Get her!” Brown shouts at her daughter. “Grab her by her neck! Hit her in the face! Take her to the ground! Keep on hitting her! Smash her in the face!”
When the girls separate, Brown, 32, gets in the face of her daughter’s opponent.
“Are you done?” Brown said. “You got hit in the face because you’re a dumb b----.”
Durand, 27, joins in, at one point yelling “WEST SIDE” at the 13-year-old girl, who suffered injuries in the fight, according to Bend Police.
“Do you know what family you’re f---- with, b---?” he asks the girl. “Relax, you just got yo a-- whupped in front of all yo punk-a-- friends.”
Police were called to the fight but when they arrived, the participants were gone, according to the Bend Police Department.
The next day, officers tracked down Brown at her home in Bend and arrested her. They allowed her to remain out of custody prior to her first court appearance.
The day after that, officers contacted Durand and arrested him.
On Tuesday, three videos were posted to Facebook — two of the incident and one of Brown driving a vehicle and mocking a girl whose mother is said to have a terminal illness.
“You’re gonna bury your momma, b----” Brown says.
By Tuesday afternoon, the videos had been viewed and shared thousands of times. Many viewers believed the adults in the video had not been punished for their actions.
The woman who posted the videos online, Marie Lane, told The Bulletin she obtained them from her daughter’s Snapchat account. She said she posted them online to stand up to bullies.
“To see a mother take an active role in bullying a child, it was too much for me,” Lane said. “This isn’t who I am.”
Lane said she and others in town believed police weren’t interested in arresting Brown and Durand.
Bend police released a statement Tuesday publicizing the April arrests of Durand and Brown.
A police spokesperson said officers at the time had forwarded the cases to the Deschutes County District Attorney’s Office for a charging decision.
Criminal charges against Brown and Durand were filed Tuesday, according to the state’s criminal justice database.
Brown is charged with menacing, harassment and second-degree disorderly conduct.
Durand is charged with menacing and second-degree disorderly conduct.
District Attorney John Hummel did not return a call seeking comment.
In May, a third person was arrested in connection with the April 12 incident, according to police. On the evening of May 30, Bend Police received a call of a fight on Desert Skies Place involving a man with a baseball bat. That man, Jesse Joe Gomez, 33, was arrested on suspicion of harassment, second-degree disorderly conduct and fourth-degree assault. He is the father of the 13-year-old.
As of Tuesday, charges against Gomez were not listed on the Oregon Judicial Information Database.
Garrett Andrews, The Bulletin
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