Family Independently Investigating Nonbinary Teen's Death After Beating

Lawyers for the family of 16-year-old Nex Benedict, a nonbinary Oklahoma high schooler, confirmed to HuffPost that they are working to independently investigate the teen’s sudden death one day after a violent physical attack by other students.

The move comes amid growing calls by advocates for a federal intervention, as Benedict’s death highlighted elected state officials’ hostile policies toward the LGBTQ community.

Police in Oklahoma have put out a statement claiming Benedict did not die as a direct result of the beating they sustained, even though the department said it still does not have all the relevant information.

Benedict was injured as part of a Feb. 7 altercation in an Owasso High School bathroom. According to the Owasso Police Department, after the fight, all of the teens involved “walked under their own power” to see the school nurse and the assistant principal. Benedict received a suspension.

On the afternoon of Feb. 8, Benedict was rushed to a hospital by emergency medics and later died.

Their story, reported early on by local news media, gathered steam on social media and has since attracted national scrutiny.

Benedict’s biological grandmother, Sue Benedict, who was raising them, said in an interview with The Independent that the teenager was being bullied at school.

“I said, ‘You’ve got to be strong and look the other way, because these people don’t know who you are’,” she told the outlet, adding, “I didn’t know how bad it had gotten.”

Owasso police said in a Wednesday statement that “preliminary information from the medical examiner’s office is that a complete autopsy was performed and indicated that the decedent did not die as a result of trauma.”

While the Benedict family acknowledged that the