Friend in trouble, police at my door.

Exactly.

Everyone used to make excuses like this for my mum. Our lives at home were hell, and we were totally abandoned by all the adults around us who saw and heard it all but kept on bleating about supporting a poor vulnerable disabled woman and how "we all snap" and so on.

When someone goes this far, this is the mask slipping.

Quite honestly, I thought you had to give a statement if they called. But either way, OP was also helping her friend by giving police the context of racial abuse suffered by her friend which the school have so far done nothing about. Maybe it’s time the little shit of a kid learned not to be racist - by the police dealing with it.

I do think you need to respond publicly on this.

You had no idea she was going to do this and have never seen any behaviour from her that would suggest it could ever happen. Let them know you have spoken to Police and given an honest account of what occurred but that you were a witness and in no way involved.

Your friend has massively overstepped and she needs to understand that.

The school also need to deal better with racism and bullying. If they refuse to take action, things often escalate between parents, which is exactly where she should have gone, not to the child himself.

Well, with a bit of luck, that if he carries on persecuting this little girl there's going to be some consequences.

It's for his parents to teach him to be kind, if they want that for him. No need for the OPs friend to concern herself about his moral character at all, she just needs him to stay the fuck away from her daughter.

I agree with @MissUltraViolet , think about your child now.
You still have to be around parents in the playground until they go to high school, your child will be in classes, be friends with some of these peoples kids.
If you feel the need to explain briefly on WhatsApp, what happened and that you are in no way responsible and have given your statement to police, then mute it.
I would be reporting the boys mother for making threats!
As for your friend I would take a step back. You have DC and your job to consider.
Shit start to a Monday 🌸

I also have another take - the school have clearly not dealt with this at all, or if they have - very, very badly. It has escalated because they have been useless addressing racist bullying in their own school. They need to have a long look at what has gone wrong here. This would NEVER be tolerated in our school even on the first occasion.

There is generational trauma linked to this kind of racism which presents just like this. Your poor friend and her child have been badly let down.

This behaviour would attract suspension and expulsion in our school and plenty of lessons around how damaging and hurtful it is for all children.

Well, shit. Seems you have been dragged in/made guilty by association.

I'm sorry but at this point I would now be putting my child (and myself) first. You and your child both need to continue going to the school for quite a while and that would be my focus, fix things for your family as best you can.

I'd distance myself from the friend who threatened to kill a child (yeah she was angry, but you cannot do shit like that as an adult, to a child) then either lay low or make a very quick statement in the group chat explaining that you were shocked and did your best to remove her from the situation but ultimately you have zero control over any other person and it's nothing to do with you.

She made her and her childs problems 100x worse in that moment unfortunately.

I would put a single message on the WhatsApp:

This is now thankfully a police matter and I am not involved so I can not comment. It seems it is more complex than it might seem.
Please feel free to contribute anything helpful to the police, otherwise please be aware that this WA is currently monitored by the police and school.

I would allow the dust to settle with your friend, yes she should not have said those words in anger, but this has clearly built up for a long time and she was triggered by the latest incident. I would send her a message and say you don’t agree with how she handled, but can understand why she is so upset and you hope she is okay.

Help the police as much as you can, this will blow over..

@oakleaffy the behaviour isn't already there - the op, the only one of us that actually know this woman, has said that it's out of character. This woman has had a huge amount on her plate - she's clearly struggling and has let loose at the worse possible place.

If ones of my friends suddenly acted like this then I wouldn't drop them, I'd want to help them.

I can only hope my friends would do the same for me.

this is a really good post. @Playgroundincident don't worry, this will calm down especially if you go back to the Whatsapp twats and tell them this.

As for your friend, just remind her that you are there for her, but what she did was wrong. While there are mitigating factors, you have a responsibility for safeguarding in your own life and its important that you stick to the guidelines.

My ds suffered a long period of racial abuse and after one particularly bad incident in the park, I went there and gave hell to the children involved who were 11/12. However my focus was saying how do you think you make him feel, this his country as much as yours etc etc. This was after having spoken to both school and parents several times. However I would never ever threaten violence. I don't care how emotional you are, they are children.
I think you need to tell the school and police about the abuse and threats you are getting. They need to know what's going on.

Drop the friend - I couldn’t be friends with anyone that would scream at a child and say they were going to kill them! Racism comes from parents and other adult influences so to have done that to a young child is disgusting.

Lay low, don’t get involved in the WhatsApp drama and let the school and police deal with everything. If anyone asks you give a straight forward I don’t condone violence and I don’t condone racism end of.

I actually agree. If that was my friend I would have refused to say anything and give a statement. I have a child that has been bullied out of school, I can't say I always handled it gracefully but when your child has been persistently bullied to a point they're fearful of going to school and no one is helping sort the issue then you can be pushed to the brink.

Yeah let’s just remember that the child on the end of the attack is only 10 years old. They could be a year 5. Of course racist abuse is absolutely awful and needs strong consequences, but to be spouting racism at 10 years old I strongly suspect that the child has heard it from home or been allowed access to some seriously inappropriate online content.

The OPs friend should potentially have an issue with the school (depending on what they did/ didn’t do), any maybe the child’s parents. The 10 yr old sounds like they have been failed by their own parents and now been subjected to a pretty horrific attack in their own playground by someone else. If that happened at my school I’d want the police involved TBH.

Again: the OP said the behaviour was out of character. I'm going with her analysis of the situation rather than some random person's off the internet.

I would not get involved as you don't know what the school have already done, perhaps the school did address it but it still continues. This is very common, I had this situation with one of my daughters, the bully continued in more subtle ways after a couple of weeks, and my daughter didn't come back to me immediately. You can't assume that the school wasn't addressing it, they usually take racial bullying very seriously as there are reporting requirements beyond their normal bullying policies. Or perhaps they didn't, Either way, I would take a huge step back and realise that all you have been told is your friend's account of everything and that is just one part of the story.

Sounds like the parents are just as bad as the kids.

Reply to the WhatsApp group stating you couldn't predict what happens. You don't condone what your friend did but you also don't condone children being racists which obviously comes from their parenting.

Tell your friend you didn't report them, you understand how hard it must have been for her bit you are required by law to comply with their witness statement. Then tell the school all of this and block.and leave the whatsapp group.

Screaming and raging. Threats to kill.
Behaviour like this doesn't just ''appear''

It doesn't show a calm or rational person.

Often if a parent is volatile, the children in that family suffer.

There's some really excellent advice here, op. Hope things calm down for you x

'One' can't guarantee anything of the sort. What is your source for that 'guarantee' other than it being what you clearly want to believe, for whatever reasons?

The OP literally said the behaviour was out of character so why would you speculate that she abuses her own child? Bit of a stretch, isn't it? What is it about this woman that seems to have got under your skin?

Plenty of parents have had their child bullied, and don't go screaming into a playground with threats to kill.

That aggression is already there, it doesn't suddenly appear.

One can guarantee this is a ''default'' setting, to rage and scream.

One wonders what the daughter has to put up with at home.

Don't dump your vulnerable, struggling single mother friend - she's having a shit enough time. She does owe you an apology when she calms down though.

She obviously shouldn't have done what she did - because unfortunately it'll likely make things harder for her child, not easier - but if I had a child who was being racially bullied and the school were turning a blind eye, I'd be pretty upset too. Screaming at a 10 year old is never the solution, but it's still frustrating that this will probably be used as cover for the racist bully and his equally awful parents; it's clear that the bully is a chip off the old block, seeing as the mum is also trying to bully the OP. A case of the apple not falling far from the tree.

I think I'd send friend a message saying I didn't report, and will speak to you in a few days once things have calmed down a bit. Then stick a blunt message on the Whatsapp group saying none of it was anything to do with you and threats will be reported to the police, then leave the group. If bully parents try and make life difficult, report them to police and school. Hopefully they won't but they're arseholes so who knows. Sorry you're going through this, it sounds shit.