Dad beaten to death by angry mob while protecting kids after schoolyard fight: report

A Maryland father died Saturday after sustaining life-ending injuries while defending his children after a schoolyard fight took a dark turn. 

Christopher Michael Wright, 43, met two adults and three teens who approached his home on May 19 around 5 p.m. and assaulted him when Wright refused to let them speak with his fiancée’s son. 

The boy, 14, had gotten in a fight at Brooklyn Park Middle School with another teen, and they wanted to continue the fight after school, but Wright told them he was not going to let them fight with the boy. His fiancée, Tracy Karopchinsky, told 11 News that the suspects had then turned their attention on Wright, telling him that if the boy would not fight, they would fight with him instead. 

Anne Arundel County Police responded to calls of an assault and arrived on the scene shortly after 5 p.m. to find Wright already receiving treatment from county fire department personnel. Responders then rushed Wright to a local trauma center for treatment as his injuries were life-threatening. 

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Wright succumbed to his injuries and died around 9:45 p.m. Saturday and was pronounced dead at the hospital. 11 News reported his cause of death as traumatic brain injury. 

Police have said they are treating the incident as a homicide and have asked anyone with information to contact them. Police listed the suspects as three to four White males in their mid-20s to mid-30s in age. Anne Arundel County Police said there have been no updates to the case and no arrests made as of Wednesday, May 24. 

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“Anyone who assisted who abetted or was an accomplice of the main suspect or the primary suspect will be culpable,” Anne Arundel County Police spokesman Marc Limansky told local news of the investigation. 

The school confirmed the fight to 11 News, and Karopchinsky told the outlet about how her 12-year-old had tried to run out into the street to help Wright, but it was “too late.” 

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“Just looking at the damage, that wasn’t just punching that did that,” Karopchinsky said. “Like, there’s no way that punching did that. The damage was done before the ambulance ever took him away.”

“He’d had a seizure. It was done,” she added. “There was nothing the hospital could do.”