The transgender Maine high schooler who assaulted a high school girl on Friday was the subject of previous sexual harassment complaints at a different Maine school just months before video emerged showing him viciously attacking a classmate outside Mount Desert Island High School in Bar Harbor.
The video, one of two showing the violent attack, did not capture the entirety of the altercation or the animalistic brutality of the assault on the smaller female student, who spoke to the Maine Wire along with her parents on the condition of anonymity.
According to the victim and her parents, the attacker—a biological male who has identified as female for several years—struck the victim in the head with a steel water jug, was growling as she pinned her down on the sidewalk, and gnawed on her eye before grabbing her by her hair and smashing her head into the concrete.
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An additional, unreleased video obtained by the Maine Wire, along with the initial video released on X by John Cardillo, confirm the family’s account of the attack and show the attacker twice striking the young girl with his metal water bottle before taking her to the ground, straddling her, biting her, and attempting to rip out her hair.
“He full on attacks her, gets on top of her and pins her down,” the mother told the Maine Wire. “So she’s not even able to defend herself in any way because he’s bigger, he’s heavier, he’s like six-feet tall,” she said. “And then he begins biting her eye and, my daughter said, while he was chewing on her eye he was growling.”
“He’s grabbing handfuls of hair and smashing her head off the pavement,” she said. “All the while the teachers, the principal is crouched down next to them.”
“When you’re smashing somebody’s head off pavement with that type of force, what is your intent? Your only intent is probably to kill that person,” she said.
The attacker—whom the Maine Wire is declining to identify as he is also a minor—had only recently begun injecting himself with estrogen as part of hormone replacement therapy, according to his Instagram profile.
“The whole time, she’s just screaming for help, crying and screaming, ‘somebody help.’ And nobody helped her,” the victim’s mother said.
“The principal sat there and screamed at them instead of helping. And [her daughter] said, ‘Mom, I really thought I was going to die. I thought that was it. I thought I was never going to see you again.’ And that’s probably the hardest thing to hear,” the mother said.
“That really haunts me,” she said.
The principal of Mount Desert Island High School, Matthew K. Haney, did not respond to a phone call asking for comment about the attack.
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After the Maine Wire contacted Haney for comment, his social media account was deleted from X. (After the publication of this story, Superintendent Mike Zboray sent a statement, which is posted below and appended in full at the end of this story.)
In the videos, a male voice can be heard instructing the attacker to release his victim’s hair. The videos show the male student walking away after the assault ends, while his victim remains on the pavement screaming.
The victim and the attacker have known each other since they attended elementary school together. Both students previously attended a public school in Ellsworth — 20 miles from Bar Harbor — before transferring to the high school on Mount Desert Island, a island Maine community typically known for its lux coastal mansions and bustling tourist traps.
According to the parents, the altercation stemmed from earlier comments made on social media involving the attacker and a friend of the victim. Although the Maine Wire was unable to locate the comments in question, the victim’s parents acknowledged that their daughter made aggressive comments toward her attacker in defense of a friend.
All three of the students regularly rode the same school bus together, but on Friday morning, when the young man came aboard the bus, he headed for the victim’s friend and began attacking her, according to the victim’s mother.
“There was no warning,” the mother said. “He just immediately hopped on the bus and went right after her.”
That’s when the girl seen in the original viral video began to physically intervene in defense of her friend.
At that point, the bus was roughly 20-mins from the high school.
The bus driver, “Bob,” was able to separate the students and radio the school to have help standing by for when he arrived.
The video camera on the school bus captured the altercation; however, none of that video has been released.
When the bus finally arrived at MDI HS, Haney was waiting near the sidewalk. The two female students, whom the bus driver had separated at the front of the bus, exited the vehicle first.
As she was walking away from the bus, Haney said something to the young girl that caused her to turn around, approach the principal, and begin yelling at him over the lack of protection for her friend.
As she was approaching Haney, the male student exited the bus and was able to grab ahold of the female student, which began the physical altercation captured in the viral video that circulated widely on Tuesday. The video of the assault, first posted online by media personality John Cardillo and soon picked up by Libs of TikTok, garnered tens of millions of views.
In the video, Haney can be seen in a green jacket standing by the fighting students, almost like a referee observing a wrestling match. According to the victim’s parents, it was only the actions of the bus driver that prevented the assault from doing more damage or perhaps even killing their daughter.
“If it had not been for that bus driver, he was able to grab [the male student’s] hand, and that’s the only reason that, probably that my daughter’s alive right now,” the mother said.
The parents said that, to the best of their knowledge, the bus driver, whom they only knew as “Bob,” was a retired former police officer who is now facing an investigation from the school district for intervening to halt the assault.
In a written statement, the district superintendent denied that the bus driver had been placed on leave; however, he did not comment on whether there was or would be an investigation into his conduct.
The attacker was temporarily suspended from school, but so was his victim.
The victims’ parents said they are prepared to pursue every legal avenue available to hold the attacker, the school district, and Haney accountable for the actions—and inactions—that left their daughter concussed and with vision-impairing damage.
Haney, who has also worked as an athletic director and sports coach, has been the principal of MDI High School in Bar Harbor for 12 years, and he was an assistant principal at the school for eight years prior, after previous stints teaching and coaching at public schools in Old Town and Sumner.
Since the attack, the girl has had two medical consultations and will soon have a CAT scan on her skull to determine whether an orbital bone fracture is causing the temporary blurring and loss of vision that she has been experiencing.
Photos shared with the Maine Wire show extensive bruising around the girl’s right eye as well as tears in her scalp where several of clumps of hair were yanked from her head during the attack.
According to the parents and local media reports, this was not the first time that the transgender student had caused trouble for other students in Maine’s public school system.
The student previously attended Ellsworth High School, where school administrators allowed him to use the girl’s bathrooms because he claimed to identify as a female.
In February, the boy’s conduct while using the girls’ restrooms—which allegedly included peeping at girls, taking cellphone pictures of other students in the restrooms, and even masturbating—prompted roughly 20 Ellsworth High School students to stage a protest.
The student protesters, who included the victim of Friday’s attack, held signs that read, “I should not be afraid to use the bathroom,” “Protect our bodies,” and “No more peeking through the door.”
According to a news report from the Ellsworth American, the school administration was hostile to the protesting students, made no changes to school policies, and claimed that the school’s investigation found no evidence that the alleged misconduct ever occurred.
The school even threatened any students who recorded the protest with suspensions, according to the Ellsworth American.
A review of attacker’s social media posting leading up to the assault revealed dozens of posts about gender transition and gender ideology, contemplation of self-harm and suicide ideation, and frustration with his fellow students.
In one series of posts, the student claimed to have started estrogen hormone replacement therapy, which is a controversial medical treatment sometimes prescribed for individuals experiencing gender dysphoria.
Although the treatments have surged in popularity in progressive states like Maine, European countries and many conservative U.S. states are increasingly discouraging the treatments for minors in favor of psychotherapy.
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In July 2023, Maine Gov. Janet Mills (D) signed a law that allows 16- and 17-year-olds to obtain the sex-change drugs — such as the estrogen injections the attacker referred to in Instagram posts — without parental consent.
A previous directive from Gov. Mills changed Maine’s Medicaid billing practices to allow sex-change treatments to be covered under Medicaid, which is a taxpayer-funded medical welfare program for the poor and indigent.
The result is that 16- and 17-year-olds in Maine are now able, in some cases, to obtain taxpayer-funded sex-change drugs without their parents knowledge or consent.
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Although the victim’s parents are only at the early stages of exploring their legal options, they have considered filing a suit against the pharmaceutical companies, as they do not believe it’s a coincidence that the attack occurred just weeks after the young man began experimental hormone replacement therapy.
The parents are in contact with the local police department and have filed for a protection from abuse order; however, the situation is complicated by how close the two minors live to one another, as well as the fact that they share a school bus and attend the same school.
The mother said that, in addition to the physical injuries her daughter sustained, she’s also suffering emotionally and has been extremely fearful of being alone since the attack, and that she’s expressed fear about her safety should she return to MDI High School.
“I just f***ing tears me apart,” the mother said.
“I couldn’t imagine, you know, we, we send our children to school in hopes that, of course, something like this would never happen, but that if I did , that, somebody, anybody, any of these f***ing teachers that are trained, you know, they go through all these f***ing trainings for what? To not use them?” she said.
The Maine Wire was unable to contact the parents or legal guardian of the attacker.
After publication of this story, the Maine Wire received the following reply from Mike Zboray, the superintendent of MDIRSS/AOS#91, which includes MDI High School:
As you are aware, a fight occurred in front of MDIHS Friday morning. Due to privacy concerns and confidentiality requirements, I cannot legally share more about the incident or anyone involved. However, I assure you that school officials are taking the matter seriously and are handling it in accordance with our policies and procedures.
Every student altercation is different, and administrative staff are trained to intervene by utilizing a range of de-escalation strategies from verbal cues to physical restraint (as a last resort, per Maine law). Every situation provides an opportunity to learn, for both students and staff, and we are always working to improve how we protect all students and staff. I trust our staff to follow their training and use their judgment in the best interests of those involved in these difficult situations.
I will also share that there are some untrue rumors connected to this event. One stated that the bus driver was on leave, which is untrue. Another accusation is that administrative staff bribed students with community service and sent a mass email to students to delete the video. Those are also untrue.
To read this article on The Maine Wire, click here.