GWINNETT COUNTY, Ga. — A Gwinnett County family is in disbelief after they said their 8-year-old daughter was sexually harassed by another 8-year-old at their daughter's school.
Both children attend Alcova Elementary, in Gwinnett County. The parents also said that even though the messages being sent to their daughter are degrading, and sexually harassing her, including profanity and violent threats, they aren’t getting any help from the school or the district.
“I look at the body of text messages and what I saw was quite disturbing,” Cortni Agnew said.
She said she received multiple alerts from Bark, a third-party app she uses to monitor her 8-year-old daughter’s phone. She said the alerts state several messages sent to her daughter included content that can be considered bullying, violent, and explicit.
11Alive got a hold of those messages and, because the content is so disturbing, much of what was said has been paraphrased.
However, in the text exchange, another 8-year-old asked Agnew‘s daughter to show them her genitals. When she declined, the insults began. In one exchange alone the child called Agnew‘s daughter by an explicit name more than 10 times and he didn’t stop there. He then sent a video, showing him shooting a gun and a follow-up message saying, “I will shot you with that.”
“We’ve seen in a video that he knows how to operate a high-power rifle, he said that he wanted to shoot my daughter with it,” Agnew said, as she describe the impact the threats has had on their family.
Voice notes were also sent to Agnew's daughter, cursing at her and attacking the child verbally.
After seeing and hearing the messages, the Agnews reached out to Alcova Elementary, the school both children attend but they say they got little help.
“I don’t think that our needs were really heard, I don’t think they were looking out for the best interest of the students," father Brent Agnew added.
11Alive reached out to the Gwinnett County school district, and in a statement, they wrote the incident falls outside of their jurisdiction.
The statement went on to say:
"The principal and staff of Alcova Elementary, as well as a School Resource Officer, met with the family of the female 3rd grader on April 10, 2023, to offer information, support, and resources from the school and district in alignment with Gwinnett County Public Schools policies and procedures."
But for the Agnew family, that simply wasn't enough.
“Resources, I don’t know what that means,” Brent said. “They definitely did not offer that yesterday and as a matter of fact, when the conversation even began, I was confounded to know that they had not even looked at the email that my wife had sent."
In the meantime, Brent and Cortni said their daughter remains on edge.
"I take this extremely seriously, our antennas are up, you have 6-year-old kindergarteners who are shooting teachers and there is violence every day. In today’s day and age all you can do is pray and continue to speak with your child and understand what they are dealing with on a daily basis,” Brent added.
According to Gwinnett County schools, the messages are from early March and were reported to Gwinnett County School Police over Spring Break. The family said they were told to give their daughter tips on how to stay away for the other child.