Video: High School Coach Throws Player Down by Her Hair

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It's an ugly situation that only looks worse once you see the video.

A fight breaks out at a girls varsity basketball game between Arvada and Alameda High Schools outside of Denver. As adults run onto the court to break it up, Arvada's coach grabs one of his players and throws her to the ground by her hair.


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The player, sophomore Areeon Frilot, was kicked off the team and suspended from school for five days. The coach was not disciplined and remains coaching and teaching at the school.

ABC 7 News in Denver has the full story and we've included their video report below:

"My intentions were to go break up the fight and grab my girl off of their girl," Frilot tells the ABC 7 reporter. Frilot was on the bench at the time the fight started. "I was just shocked. Like I can't believe the one person I trusted out of everybody at school was the one to do that to me."

Frilot did say the coach had warned the team before the game not to fight. A fight had erupted in last year's game between the two schools — a fight Areeon was involved in. She also admits she got into another fight at school.

"They didn't even give me the benefit of the doubt when I didn't do anything," Frilot tells ABC 7. "It's just like it shows you don't have any hope or faith in your students to change."

Areeon's mother, Melissa Martinez, said no one from the school apologized to her or her daughter for the coach's actions. Martinez complained to the Lakewood, Colo. police who investigated the incident. The District Attorney's Office declined to file charges.

The school told ABC 7 they consider the matter closed.

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