A YouTube video, showing a girl getting hit in the head with a shovel, instantly went viral with hundreds of thousands of people viewing it.
The video shows two girls, 14-year-olds Miranda Fugate and Emily Olinger, in an altercation. The trash talking quickly escalates and leads to one of the girls smacking the other girl with a shovel, knocking her to the ground. Despite recent reports, Miranda Fugate (the girl who suffered the shovel blow) is not dead. She is alive and well, and only suffered minor injuries.
“Miranda Fugate Lockwood died of serious head injuries after being hit with a shovel in the head by an old friend of hers named Emily Powers. The whole thing was caught on video and posted all over the internet and generated around 500,000 video views in just 2 days,” a report from Huzlers.com read.
Conflicting reports have argued whether or not the fight was staged, which has led to the Miami County (Ohio) police launching an investigation. “When we have these types of videos, we need to explore to make sure that they’re authentic and not staged, as far as an investigation,” Sheriff’s Major Steve Lord said.
“Anytime you’re dealing with an assault that’s potentially deadly, you run a risk. In this case, what the law is going to look at in Ohio is whether that injury is substantial physical harm or less than serious physical harm. If it’s determined to be serious physical harm then that could be a felony,” Lord added. “Also, if you start hitting people in the head with a shovel, it can lead to death.”
Josh Officer, the 14-year-old who recorded the fight, said that it was not a hoax and was completely real. It was real fight. People were thinking it was fake and stuff on the Dr. Drew Show. It was completely real. They have been wanting to fight for about a year now,” he said.
Lord revealed that Olinger could possibly be charged with disorderly conduct. The video has been removed from YouTube.
Image via Wikimedia Commons