HOUSTON – A Houston mother says bullying got so bad for her 10 year old son that she was afraid he was going to contemplate suicide.
Kristin Harlan says the fourth grader reached that low point after repeatedly getting attacked by the same group of boys at Greenwood Forest Elementary School.
He suffered beatings that left bruises, scrapes and other marks Harlan documented over the past six months.
"He's like, 'These four boys surrounded me and they started hitting me,'" Harlan recalls in a conversation with her son after the attack. She says he told her, "'I fell to the ground and they were hitting me and kicking me.'"
Harlan says the tipping point came after perhaps the most brutal attack just a few weeks ago.
She says her son was beaten by the same boys in a restroom -- an assault that led Harlan and her husband to transfer their son to another school.
"He tried to get out of the bathroom and they pulled him back by his shirt and he got hit in the jaw," Harlan says. "He was hit in the stomach multiple times."
In a statement to Channel 2, a Klein ISD spokesperson confirmed the move -- saying the Harlan's son "was transferred at the request of the parent after campus administration were made aware of an altercation that took place involving a group of students."
But Harlan believes the school district failed her son and family by allowing the other boys to stay in the school.
"Bullying just doesn't happen in high school or even middle school," says Harlan. "It's starting as young as nine, 10 years old now."
Harlan says her son has had to undergo counseling because of the attacks. She says he is happy at his new school, which he started at today.