A Maryland father was brutally beaten to death outside his home while protecting his children from a group of teenagers and adults who wanted to finish a fight that started at school, according to the man’s family.
Christopher Michael Wright, 43, was outside his home Friday when he was confronted by three teens and two adults who were looking for his fiancée’s 14-year-old son, who had gotten in a fight with another teen at Brooklyn Park Middle School earlier in the day, WBAL-TV reported.
When Wright told the group that the boy was not going to come outside to fight, they told him, “’If he’s not going to fight, then you’re going to fight,'” Wright’s fiancée, Tracy Karopchinsky, told the outlet.
The group attacked Wright, who was later taken to an area hospital, where he died from a traumatic brain injury on Saturday.
“Just looking at the damage that was done to him, that wasn’t just punching that did that. Like, there’s no way that punching did that. The damage was done before the ambulance ever took him away. I mean, he’d had a seizure. It was done. There was nothing that the hospital could do,” Karopchinsky said.
The deadly beating was caught on a security camera. Karopchinsky’s three children were all home at the time.
“My dad and I tried to go onto the camera to look, and the first video that comes up is my 12-year-old son screaming, ‘Daddy, Daddy, Daddy,’ and running out of the house into the street to go help his dad,” Karopchinsky said. “And I couldn’t watch any more after that. I just couldn’t.”
School officials confirmed the fight at the school and said they are cooperating with Anne Arundel County police during their investigation, WBAL-TV reported.
No charges have been filed against any of the individuals involved.
Karopchinsky said parents need to take responsibility for what she sees as rampant violence among teenagers.
“They didn’t just ruin our lives. Their lives are going to be changed forever. Their parents’ lives are going to be changed forever, and nobody thinks about that just from a fight,” Karopchinsky said. “It is everywhere, and somewhere, we as parents are failing these children as parents. It’s not the school’s responsibility. It’s our responsibility.”
She called Wright her best friend and said he was a devoted father who loved the stars and gardening. A candlelight vigil has been planned in his memory, she said.
