A Detroit mother is demanding answers after she says her two daughters told her that a student at their elementary school set her 7-year-old’s hair on fire before blowing it out.
The incident happened at Noble Elementary School while the kids were standing in the lunch line, WXYZ-TV reports. Judy Holland took pictures of her daughter Mikaela’s hair, showing the singed and broken-off ends.
Holland said it was her younger daughter, who is in kindergarten at the same school, who witnessed the boy put a lighter to her sister’s hair. The girls said they went to a school worker to report the incident to ask if they could call their mom, only to be told to sit down.
“I want to know why a child had a lighter,” Holland said. “My baby’s hair could have went up in flames if I had put chemicals in her hair.”
The upset mother went to the school Thursday to find out why no one listened to Mikaela when the first-grader tried to speak up. She also asked to speak to other kids in Mikaela’s class, where she said she found out more about the incident.
“It was a little boy, he’s in the second grade,” Holland said. “It was a red lighter and three of the students [saw] him. And the boy, when her hair caught on fire, he was blowing her hair out.”
A spokesperson for Detroit Public Schools told the news site that authorities could not find any evidence to support Holland’s allegations, but said they were still investigating and looking at surveillance footage.
Holland, meanwhile, says she is worried about what could have happened to her daughter if she had put gel, or any other kind of product, in her daughter’s hair unknowingly.
“She could have third-degree burns,” she said. “She could have been put up in flames. I don’t want this to happen to any other kid.”