Just a day after saying goodbye to his beautiful little girl Adriana, Mike Kuch, took time to share with Jersey Coast Emergency News the torture him and his family are living through as a result of a system that failed his daughter and continues to put his family through a living hell.

Adriana Kuch has become everyone’s little girl and everyone’s heart is grieving with her parents, family and friends. The public is screaming for accountability and transparency. How can a school system continue to fail one student after another? How can they continue to turn a blind eye and a deaf ear?

Adriana was a freshman at Central Regional High School, loved school and her life. She was a friend to everyone, and loved animals of all kinds. However, her life was tragically cut short after she was badly assaulted in a hallway at CRHS and bullied through social media by her assailants. The pressure was too much for her and she tragically took her own life.

Mike, Adriana’s dad shares the horror of a failed system.

On the morning of February 1, 2023 Mike received a call from Adriana around 11 am crying, telling him that she was jumped. Then as any worried father would do, Mike rushed to the school not knowing the extent of her injuries or the seriousness of the attack. The school never called him. When he arrived at the school he was in the main office and had to wait to speak to administrators. While he was there another parent walked in asking, “What did my daughter do now?” Mike didn’t think much about it at first assuming that his daughter got into a fight at school since he didn’t really know what was happening and no officials from the school called him. He just knew “I’m a father, when your daughter cries you run.”

Mike gets into the room and is met by Assistant Principal Mr. Healy, an assistant principal for one of the other grades. Mr. Healy advised Mike that Adriana was involved in an altercation, and her boyfriend Jason broke it up. At this point Mike still has no idea of the severity of the attack. Mike saw his daughter and noticed her face was swollen and bruised, she’s crying and she wrapped her arms around him and told him, “they jumped me dad”. Mike initially believed this to involve only one other girl and he was advised initially only one of the attackers was suspended. Mike was advised that Adriana was sent to the nurses office after the attack. Mike asked if police were called and if charges were filed and he was told, “No, that is not our policy.” Mike was told another girl helped break up the fight but this was not true. She actually contributed to the assault by striking Adriana and pushing Adriana’s boyfriend off so the assault could continue.

At that point Mike recognized the school resource officer and and shook his hand. Mike finds out that despite a police officer being at the school, the officer is not allowed per school policy, to write a report or issue charges. “I know the officer and he’s a good guy. It’s the “policy” that is broken.” A patrolman would need to be called in from the road to do the report. The schools policy is not to do that. Mike said, “I can’t understand why the superintendent brings police into the school and dictates what they do.” A question many parents have been asking.

Mike immediately takes his daughter to the police station to file a report. At this point he still didn’t know his daughter was assaulted with a weapon and how many people were involved. The school failed to tell Mike his daughter blacked out during the attack. He believes she experienced a flash knockout and really did not know what happened to her. She was confused and disoriented.

After filing the police report and upon Mike returning home with Adriana she approached her father and said, “dad they just posted a video of them jumping me on tik tok, and they are posting stuff online making fun of me.” Mike, still only believing one girl assaulted Adriana, tells her to give him the video. As Mike watched the video he became enraged that the school lied to him and downplayed the attack.

Many have seen the horrific video but Mike shared the following:

“My daughter was walking looking at her phone and you can hear the girls laughing and chuckling, asking “are we going to do this” and they were like “hey yeah we are going to do this.” They walked down the hall in a group of four and they literally move into position like they are clearing a room or something, they had this strategically planned … one girl comes over and blocks Jason while the other one blasts my daughter in the face and she’s not even looking, she’s literally looking at her cell phone. Between the video and the audio she clearly hits her in the face three times and my daughter drops. Then Jason pushes an an attacker off of my daughter and that’s when another student comes in and pushes Jason and then the attacker grabs my daughter by the hair and starts dragging her by her hair while punching her. Then a teacher comes out of the room, watches and then goes back in her room.”

Mike continues, “Bear in mind the two other girls recording the two other videos, by the way the girl who is blocking Jason is sneaking sucker punches in on my daughter she was recording too. She had a phone in her God dam hand recording while she was attacking my daughter at point blank range.” See attached photos Mike shared of screen shots of the attacks with comments.

After seeing this video Mike immediately reached back out to the school and emails the secretary the video and the threats. He also sent it to the assistant Vice Principal, Mr. Mazuka, at which time he demanded a meeting. Mr. Mazuka didn’t call back until the end of the day. Mike then immediately reached out to the police and advised them that the assailants were bullying his daughter on line and the video shows more than one attacker. Police dispatch advised Mike they had the video from the school and didn’t need his.

Based on the time of the video posting it was posted from school. So, if the school had truly done their “internal investigation” that video could have been intercepted, they could have detained all four girls and had ALL of the videos and potentially saved Adriana’s life. “The school didn’t do anything.”

The following morning Mike makes an appointment with the principal and he went into the meeting with Mr. Mazuka and the principal and he asked them why his daughter was assaulted with a weapon and no police report was filed. Mr. Mazuka advised him that he put the video on the big screen and he claims he did not see Adriana assaulted with a water bottle. Mazuka advised him that she was “splashed” with water. At that point in the meeting Mike realized the principal never even seen the video.

Mike then demanded that the principal expel the attackers. The principal defines expulsion to Mike and then proceeds to tell him it’s not their policy to expel students. He advised her that Adriana would not be returning to school with these girls. The school requested he not send Adriana back because of how badly her face was injured and they didn’t want her to be targeted again.

Mike talked to Adriana the evening before she took her life and she expressed to him that she wanted to return to school. She loved school. He was very concerned for her safety at the school and they talked about friends and choices etc.

After that heart to heart everyone went to bed and the last time he seen Adriana alive was on their security camera getting a snack around 10 pm. The next morning Adriana’s step mom went to wake her for school and he hears his wife screaming and he ran downstairs where his wife was screaming NO NO. Mike said a million thoughts were racing through his head. He looked in Adriana’s room and her light was on but her bed was empty. Still confused as he turned he saw his beautiful little girl in the closet gone. Mike sat next to his beautiful Adriana while he waited for police.

The Monday following Adriana’s passing Mike met with the Superintendent and he wanted to go over step by step what happened to his daughter. The superintendent advised Mike that they were not prepared to talk about Adriana, they thought he wanted to discuss helping with the reintegration of his son back into the school. Mike was upset and took control of the meeting by making the four school representatives in that room watch the video frame by frame. One of the four representatives in that room cried watching the vicious attack. Mr. Mazuka was one of the four representatives and Mike said he just sat there dumbfounded. Even after seeing the video they continued to stand firm that it was not their policy to call the police.

Mike advised us that at least one of his daughters attackers, was in the Berkeley school district as part of the “Choice” program offered to out of district students to take advantage of education programs that may not be available in their own district. https://www.nj.gov/education/choice/ Mike was advised that this attacker had just got off home bound suspension. This is the second case of bullying we reported on this week that involves students from out of district by way of the Choice program.

Mike’s family is indirectly being victimized by one of the attacker’s mother who is posting messages on social media, one of which he read to us as follows: “I don’t know why you keep saying 3 on 1 please go on enjoy your guys lawsuit babe seriously but my kid is still a minor and so are the others.”

I asked Mike about the unnecessary and inappropriate comments made by the superintendent about Adriana and his family and he cannot understand how this man has not been fired. From speaking to so many members of the public over the last week that sentiment is repeated over and over. How does someone stoop to that level to shift blame to the victim. This man needs to resign his $190K a year job.

Mike wants to set the record straight on the superintendent’s accusations that his daughter was a drug addict. The following is his statement: “….. if you want to sit there and say my daughter’s a drug addict because she’s smoking marijuana that the state legalized, well if my daughter is a drug addict, then the state are drug dealers.”

Mike’s advice to other parents talk to your kids everyday and find out what’s going on in school.

We at Jersey Coast Emergency News extend our deepest condolences to Mike and his family. No parent should have to go through this. No child should have to go through what Adriana did. Justice for Adriana!