Owasso police release bodycam footage of Nex Benedict interview: ‘I got jumped’

The Owasso Police Department has released body cam footage of a school resource officer's interview with Nex Benedict, the  Oklahoma 16-year-old who died a day after being involved in a fight that broke out in a high school bathroom.

"So what happened today?" the officer, Caleb Thompson, asks.

"I got jumped," Nex says.

Nex's mother, Sue Benedict, interjects and tells the officer that Nex had complained to her of being bullied.

"[Nex] said mom, these three girls there, they're making comments, they're calling us names, they're throwing stuff at us."

Sue Benedict said she told Nex to rise above it. "[Nex] did, until [they] couldn't, in the bathroom," Sue Benedict tells the officer.

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The interview took place at an Owasso hospital about two hours after the Feb. 7 fight. Nex was later discharged from the hospital.

But shortly before 3 p.m. the next day, Sue Benedict called 911 to report Nex was experiencing medical issues, including shallow breathing. Benedict told the 911 operator about the altercation at school and said Nex had hit their head on the bathroom floor, according to a search warrant issued in the case.

In the interview with Thompson, Nex tells the officer the altercation took place around 1 p.m. when Nex and their friends were in the bathroom and the other three girls made fun of them.

"They said something like 'why do they laugh like that,' and they were talking about us, in front of us," Nex tells Thompson. "So I went up and poured water on them and all three of them came at me."

The girls took Nex's feet out from under them and started beating as they lay on the ground, Nex told the officer. They said their friends tried to pull the girls off before they blacked out.

The death of Nex Benedict has prompted widespread attention and nationwide calls for schools to better protect students who may be bullied because of their gender and sexual identities. Nex, a sophomore at Owasso High School, used they/them and he/him pronouns and identified as gender expansive, an umbrella term that describes people whose gender identity expands beyond traditional gender norms, according to the National Institutes of Health.

Nex had previously been bullied because of their gender identity, friends of Nex told an advocacy group. Authorities are investigating what led up to the fight and whether Nex was targeted because of their gender identity.

While the Owasso Police Department said Wednesday that Nex's death was not the result of injuries from a fight, its statement added that the findings were preliminary and investigations by the medical examiner's office and the police department remain underway. The police statement provided no additional details but said an official autopsy would later be released.

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Nex's family says though many questions remain unanswered, the facts of the case so far are troubling. They plan to conduct an independent investigation, relatives confirmed in a statement issued Wednesday. They also urged officials to "hold those responsible to account and to ensure it never happens again."

In the 21-minute bodycam footage, the officer spends little time asking Nex about the actions of the three girls that led up to the altercation. He also never asks why Nex thought the girls were antagonizing them.

He asked Nex why they never reported the girls' actions to school officials.

"I didn't really see the point," Nex responded. "I told my mom."

At some points in the interview, the officer refers to the verbal interactions between the girls as "bantering."

In the search warrant, which a judge signed on Feb. 9, Penny Hamrick, an Owasso Police detective, wrote that Sue Benedict did not want to pursue assault charges against the other students at the time but asked the police to talk with school administrators about what had happened.

In the hospital interview, Thompson appears to dissuade Sue Benedict and Nex from filing charges. He tells them that he could file an assault charge against the girls but that it could mean assault charges for Nex as well for throwing water on them.

"You got freedom of speech," the officer tells them, referring to the three girls' alleged taunts. "The minute you threw water on them you made the first jab. It may not go the direction you want it to go."

"Running the mouth is freedom of speech, unfortunately," the officer adds. "You can say mean, hurtful things all day long and you gotta let it roll off your shoulder."

Sue Benedict said "what about cause there were three of them, and (Nex) only threw water on one."

Thompson replies that it doesn't matter from a criminal aspect because Nex started "the domino effect" that led to the fight. He said it would matter to the school, which would likely discipline all the students involved.

Sue Benedict tells Thompson she would like him to ask school officials why they didn't alert police immediately after the fight.

"They dropped the ball on this one not notifying me right away," Thompson tells her.

Sue Benedict adds that she wants the three girls parents to know what happened. "Those girls started everything from the get go," she tells Thompson.

This is a developing story.

This article originally appeared on Oklahoman: Oklahoma teen dies: Owasso police bodycam footage of interview