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According to Keith and his family, it all started a week ago when Keith and his friends were sitting around his house talking about online anonymity. Keith decided to change his Snapchat avatar into a black Bitmoji character. One of his friends, a girl, immediately noticed and within minutes told him he needed to change it back. She said it was insensitive and racist for a white person to use a black character as an avatar. Keith, stubborn as any eighth grader, laughed it off and said he wasn’t going to change it. The next day at school the girl, according to Keith, then started telling everyone he was a racist. The harassment and accusations persisted for days. Other students began threatening to beat up Keith, saying they were going to jump him after school for being ‘racist.’ Then the girl and three other female classmates took it to the next level, appearing to take a page from the Feinstein handbook on how to destroy your political enemies, they appeared before the vice principal to accuse Keith of sexual harassment and assault stemming back to the summer.

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Only after the two hour inquisition did the school phone Keith’s parents to let them know he was being suspended. But before they did that, they called the police. By the time Keith’s father showed up at the school, his son was being cuffed and put into the back of a police car as a crowd of students stood by ogling the scene.

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The Baileys have met with a lawyer and started a legal defense fund for their son. After Keith’s five day school suspension is up, the school has the option to extend it another five days, or to expel Keith entirely. But after the humiliation Keith suffered, his parents are already looking to enroll him in a new school. The other students, they say, already assume he is guilty after watching him put in the back of a police car.

“It blew my mind. my son is not even mature enough to have done anything like that maliciously. I don’t think it’s in his realm of mental capacity at this point in his life. That they are demonizing him as some sort of malicious predator blows my mind. I don’t even think his mind is capable of being predatory,” Dennis says.

The Crucible-like scenario has the Bailey’s reeling. “We are all on edge. I’m furious personally. I’m furious at these kids, and at their parents for allowing them to do something like this. I’m furious at the school for not even seeming like they are giving him a chance to defend himself, and the way they tried to intimidate him. It seems really shady how they wouldn’t call us until two hours after they started interrogating him,” Dennis says.

He sees the whole terrifying situation as trickling down from the way all the adults on television appear to be treating each other these days. “What 13 year old girl doesn’t love drama? I imagine that’s all they see it as. Let’s stir up some drama. What they don’t realize is now he is facing criminal charges. I hope these girls did this without truly understanding the repercussions of their actions. I think the #metoo thing has gotten played out so much, that they see it as a way to get what they want. It’s a quick way to demonize somebody. I hope they didn’t foresee what the actual ramifications would be.”

To donate to Keith Bailey’s legal defense fund, click here.

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