Teen charged in violent locker room brawl

WARNING: GRAPHIC VIDEO

Tuesday, May 9, 2017

ATLANTA -- A teenager was seriously hurt and another is now facing charges after a vicious high school fight that was recorded on cellphone video.

The video shows fellow students cheering and chanting while the boy suffered a brutal beating and was left unconscious.

"It looked like there were a bunch of animals just like chanting on a fight," student Brionna Rodriguez said.

The viral locker room fight video was disgusting to a half-dozen Discovery High School kids who brought shared it with WSB over the weekend.

"Honestly, it's repulsive," Rodriguez said. "It was inhumane the way they were all acting.

Gwinnett County Schools confirmed their receipt of the video evidence has led to more criminal charges for the 16-year-old you see body slamming another 15-year-old student.

And the investigation may extend to kids seen chanting and watching, egging it on behind a chain-linked fence.

"How dare you just leave a kid there to lie there unconscious and then have somebody to find him like that. That's so sad," Rodriguez said.

The video shows a Friday morning fight. A coach was clearing the locker room when he found the badly injured victim laid out on the cement floor.

Students scattered. No one offered video evidence, but they did give up a Wednesday fight video featuring the same two guys and that led to battery-related charges for the older student.

Students, concerned for their own safety, reached out to us.

"I hope it opens everybody's eyes," Rodriguez said.

WSB was able to provide the schools with the Friday video so they've re-opened an investigation. Now, students say they want a culture of social media likes for violence to end.

"They could have had people break it up, but they decided to record the whole thing and be childish," student James Rodriguez said. "Just to see what our students are capable of, I don't want to have to walk into school thinking that's something that could happen to me."

A police report filed on Monday about the fight says that after an investigation by the school resource officer, it appears to have been a mutual fight situation and no criminal charges will be filed in the case.