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SALT LAKE CITY -- A middle school student is recovering from what was much more than a schoolyard spat. Police say he was severely beaten by a group of high school students after they claimed he had said something negative about one of his classmates.
Ian Robbins underwent a major surgery and is making a remarkable recovery. Police say this was a severe and violent form of bullying and that the teens involved could have killed the 13-year-old.
"I don't remember anything," Ian says. "I'm told they were really, really big -- like twice my size."
The details are fuzzy, but the scar on Ian's head tells the story.
"They made an incision all the way across my head and pulled it down," he says. "I don't have brain damage, and I'm alive."
On Oct. 8, Ian and his friends were at the Highland vs. Bountiful football game at Highland High School. He says they left during the fourth quarter, and on the way out were confronted by a group of East High School students.
The other teens asked Ian if he had said anything bad about a middle school classmate of his last year. He told them no, and that's when the beating began.
Ian fell to the ground, and police say the 16- and 17-year-olds began kicking him in the head. The force from a foot fractured his skull and literally knocked a hole in his head.
"Five days later, he had to have reconstructive surgery that lasted over five hours," Ian's dad, Taylor Robbins, says. "He has nine titanium plates in his head holding him back together."
One inch lower, and his dad says Ian would have lost his eye. One inch higher, he could have lost his life.
"If there's a silver lining and you want to get a hole punched in your head, that's where you want it: above the eye and below the brain," Taylor Robbins says.
After extensive surgery, Ian is making a swift recovery.
Police have five boys they believe are responsible in custody.
"There could be felonies associated with the assault," says Salt Lake City police detective Dennis McGowan. "If there are, then kids who are charged with the felonies would be charged as adults."
McGowan says the five suspects are being held in a juvenile detention center.
E-mail: jstagg@ksl.com
