The Oklahoma student was involved in a school fight the day before his death
Nex Benedict, the 16-year-old student from from Owasso High School whose death has sparked outrage across the nation, died by suicide, according to the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner in Oklahoma.
A summary report identified the cause of death as combined toxicity from diphenhydramine and fluoxetine.
Friends and family said Benedict used he and him pronouns as well as they and them pronouns. Relatives of the 10th-grader said he had been bullied over his gender identity. On Feb. 7, Benedict was involved in a fight with three older girls. The high school student told police officers and medical staff that he blacked out during the fight, and released footage from the school hallways also shows him swaying slightly while walking to the administration’s offices. One day after the fight, Benedict collapsed and was rushed back to a local hospital, where he was pronounced dead.
His death has drawn national attention as activists and trans students have blamed the state’s antagonistic policies surrounding transgender students for the tragedy.
The Department of Education has launched an investigation into the death of Oklahoma teenager, which arrived after Human Rights Campaign (HRC) President Kelley Robinson sent letters to Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona and Attorney General Merrick Garland, calling on their respective departments to launch investigations into the circumstances of Benedict’s death.
Following the tragedy, Owasso High School staged a walkout, with 40 students leaving class to protest his death — and the bullying polices students believe caused Benedict’s death, NBC News reported. “There’s been bullying issues. This time, the bullying has gone so far that a student has passed,” Kane, a walkout organizer, told NBC News. “To me, it doesn’t matter if Nex passed from a traumatic brain injury or if they passed from suicide. What matters is the fact that they died after getting bullied, and that is the story for so many other students. I’ve been close to ending it myself because of bullying. It’s not new for so many students.”
This is a developing story…