Virginia track runner received death threats after hitting opponent with baton

A senior at I.C. Norcom High School in Portsmouth, Virginia, said she’s received death threats since a viral video from last week’s Class 3 State Indoor Championships showed her hitting an opponent in the head with a baton during a relay.

Alaila Everett told the WAVY-10 news station that it was an accident in a close race. Kaelan Tucker, the other runner, said she suffered a concussion and a possible skull fracture.

“It’s like they are going off one angle,” Everett said on Sunday.

Everett had the inside track at the Virginia High School League championship during the second leg of the 4x200 relay race. Tucker started to pass her on the right when Everett appeared to cock her arm back and swing at Tucker’s head with the baton.

Tucker, a junior from Brookville High School in Lynchburg, collapsed on the side of the track. The pair had been racing neck-and-neck, brushing by each other in adjacent lanes as they rounded the curve.

“After a couple times of hitting her, my baton got stuck behind her back like this, and it rolled up her back. I lost my balance when I pumped my arms again,” Everett said. “She got hit.”

It didn’t feel accidental to Tucker.

“As we were coming up in the middle of the curve, we were bumping arms a lot. So, I got a little more on the outside of the curve to go around her,” she told an ABC affiliate on Friday. “When I finally pushed through to get in front of her, that’s when she hit me in the head with the baton.”

In the week since the race, Everett said she has received death threats and been called racial slurs from people who saw the incident on social media.

“They are assuming my character, calling me ghetto and racial slurs, death threats … all of this off of a nine-second video,” Everett said.

The high school senior said she couldn’t apologize, as Tucker blocked her on social media. The Tucker family is seeking a protective order and demanding an apology.

Everett’s team was later disqualified. The VHSL said it is reviewing the incident in an investigation.