A Minnesota mom is so desperate for justice that she posted a video of her own daughter being brutally beaten to Facebook.
The video has been viewed more than 300,000 times on Facebook since Jennifer Detenancour posted it on June 18. It shows two women pummeling 15-year-old Sydney Detenancour while another female cuts off her hair. The brutal attack in a wooded backyard in Saint Francis, Minnesota, was all because Detenancour was riding in the car of one of her attackers’ boyfriends.
Cassandra Borden, 19, accused Detenancour of riding alone with her boyfriend, Seth Evans, when he was arrested for drunk driving on June 16. (Evans, 19, was thrown in jail for underage intoxication and speeding, according to a booking summary.)
“I’m not gonna lie to you... I brought you out here for a reason, ’cause you were with my man!” Borden tells her. “I’m gonna fucking hit you!”
“What the fuck, Cassy?” Sydney protests as she is pummeled. “I didn’t say shit to anybody!”
Another woman at the scene, who identifies herself as Evans’s sister, straddles and punches Sydney.
“Why is my brother back in jail?” the woman shouts. The Daily Beast is not identifying her because she has not been arrested and is believed to be underage.
“Everyone fucking drinks and drives,” Borden’s brother, Justin Adler, says. “I wish I could hit you too, but I’m a guy.”
At one point when Sydney is on the ground, a person reaches into the lower right of the frame and snips hair with a pair of scissors.
Cassandra Borden was arrested on misdemeanor fifth-degree assault on Saturday but quickly released, according to the Saint Francis police department.
“The police department is continuing its investigation into others who may have been involved or witnessed the attack,” the department said in a statement.
“They can’t talk to everyone at one time,” a woman at the station told The Daily Beast on Wednesday.
Sydney told local television station KARE11 she “kind of just curled up and made sure I kept my face as normal-looking as possible” during the assault.
The Detenancour family did not return a request for comment. Jennifer expressed disappointment on Facebook with the lenient charge for one of her daughter’s alleged attackers.
“Was just informed by a police officer they’re only facing 5th degree assault because there was no broken bones that they know of and apparently a scissors it’s not a weapon,” she wrote.
Reached by phone, Borden’s father, Todd, expressed remorse for what had happened, and astonishment that grown men present at the beating did not intervene.
“When I got sent that video on Saturday night... I had to stop working on the house,” he told The Daily Beast. “It made me sick.”
Borden said police never contacted him, though he eventually called to tell them where Cassandra was.
“I’m not trying to cover up for what Cassandra did, but I’m not seeing them blaming these other people for the situation,” he said. “[Bystanders] should be in jail too. You stand there watching all this stuff, and not doing anything?”
Borden said his son and daughter were both drunk during the assault.
“She says ‘I blacked out, I don’t know, I got something wrong with me,’” Todd said. A recovering addict himself, plans to send her to a treatment center in Minneapolis, or out of state.
Adler, the 26-year-old brother, confirmed to The Daily Beast that he is one of the individuals shown on camera.
“Everyone is angry about this fucking video because it happened, because this girl was 15,” he said. “Like I said, I didn’t know this fight was gonna happen until my sister started swinging.”
Adler dodged the question of why he didn’t stop the beat down.
“I mean, there was 12 people there,” he said. “They could’ve stopped her too. Did they do do that? No, they just sat around and watched.”
Adler told The Daily Beast he hadn’t been contact by Saint Francis police.
Gregory Carson, a biker in the town, started a “Justice for Sydney” group to demand that the perpetrators be punished. About 150 bikers are expected at a ride for Sydney on Wednesday evening, he told The Daily Beast.
“I’ve always been a believer in using my Harley for the good,” he said. He added that many local salons have offered to cut and style Sydney’s hair after the haphazard snip.
He was touched by the video, which he came across on a friend’s Facebook page, in part because the onlookers are adults. At least one is a 32-year-old man, Carson said.
Todd Borden, who told The Daily Beast he’s been in contact with Carson in an effort to figure out what really happened, said he warned his former brother-in-law, who was at the beating, to watch out. He works at a bar popular with bikers.
“I emailed him, and I said if I were you, I’d quit my job, because people aren’t happy,” he said.
Adler had a more macho response.
“If they come after me, I’ll press charges too. I ain’t scared of anyone.”