<p>I don’t know how is it is in NY, but here in Iowa once a child appears at a school sanctioned bus stop, waiting for a school bus, he is considered within the jurisdiction of the school. This was put in place exactly to allow the schools to deal with incidents at the bus stop.</p>
<p>Since there was a group of children at the bus stop, I do not think there’s anything wrong with the school and police taking a full week to find out exactly what happened before suspending. </p>
<p>Have you ever tried to get a factual story from a group of preteen kids about what exactly this or that one did, while in a crowd?</p>
<p>As the police chief said, they didn’t want to put together “a sloppy case” and that there was no hurry to arrest. Everybody knows where everyone else lives om town. Nobody is fleeing the scene.
Details don’t get forgotten in a week; they would after a month or a year. </p>
<p>As troubling as it is to wait for a result, and horrible for the family of the boy, I think a week to investigate this properly is appropriate. I’m sure the clock ticks slowly for the traumatized boy and parents.
But I wouldn’t be criticizing the school and police for doing a careful job. We’ll see how it ends up to really know. </p>
<p>Looking at the longview, I’d rather endure an emotionally difficult delay for a week if that ensures a more certain outcome of punishing the correctly-identified perpetrators.</p>
<p>I’m praying for justice in this awful case. Justice, not haste. Criminal and civil suits against the families of the boys regarding his broken leg and any future losses of opportunity from that injury.</p>
<p>Go after the parents’ wallets to see some change in a community that evidently enables racism and bullying among their children.</p>
<p>this makes me sick- where can we send our support for this family?</p>
<p>If in fact the police and local politicians are stone-walling this case, the Justice Department can step in. If the attack was based on ethnic bias, it can be considered a federal hate crime. The family’s lawyer may want to pursue it there as well as waiting for the local investigation.</p>
<p>Now I’m hoping this: the OP might mention Chedva’s points in post #24 to your colleague, who can advise the family to bring that concept to the family’s lawyer.</p>
<p>As well, advice might be forthcoming from the AntiDefamation League (google them).</p>
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<p>I’d be asking how a bus driver didn’t see a kid with a blanket down on the ground. Unless he was 50 feet away from the actual stop in the woods someplace, a driver seeing someone in that situation should stop and assess the situation at least.</p>
<p>And in these days of facebook, the first thing I’d be asking for is the suspects facebook pages as of the day of the incident. Wouldn’t be surprised to see comments that would support the hate crime scenario. 3 kids don’t show up with pine branches on the same day without some organization…</p>
<p>^ That was my first reaction…how does one come to snap multiple large branches off what appears to be a healthy Douglas fir unless there’s some intent to do harm? My understanding was that the bus was actually gone when the lady stopped, with her son, on their way to school…I don’t know if Saro is accurate in saying she was flagged down or if she just happened to go by and see him, which is what my friend was told. There were some facebook posts that were pretty telling, but they have been taken down since then.</p>
<p>Chevda, thank you for that suggestion. I will pass that along to the family, at least they will have some hope that there may be justice if the local system fails them. </p>
<p>EK, if you would like to send a card, the dad’s business address is Oneida Pediatric Group, 421 Main St, Oneida, NY13421.</p>
<p>Middle school is the worst age–kids old enough to perceive that there are stratas of society and all too eager to reinforce them through cruel actions and words. High school gets a bad rap when it comes to bullying, but middle school is ten times worse.</p>
<p>Probably the little thugs will grow up to terrorize others in more socially acceptable ways (take over a utilities company and turn off some old lady’s heat in the dead of winter, perhaps).</p>
<p>I hope that the assailants are charged with assault and, just as a cherry on top, the owner of the Douglas fir charges them with property damage.</p>
<p>Small towns are always the worst about these kind of things, IMO. I think it’s just harder for people to take an action that will go against someone “everyone knows”. “Oh, what will everyone think of me if I say anything about [important person’s] son, everyone knows [important person] and thinks so highly of him and he donated $XXXX to my neighbor’s charity last year, etc.”</p>
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<p>Lol, Naturally, is that how they learn to do those things? I can so envision middle school as the training ground for hatchet men!</p>
<p>You’re absolutely right about small towns…it’s a blessing and sometimes a curse. My vote for the MVP would go to the victim’s dad though. Imho, the other three are fairly expendable - the state legislature is almost useless and you cant swing a cat up here without hitting a police officer (come to think of it, maybe thats why theres so little real crime). My opinion is a bit tainted with regard to the third guy though as our sole experience with that particular ER doc went south the second he whisked my DD’s neck brace off without an x-ray or even an exam. She’d taken a terrible fall on the ice nearby and had been brought in by ambulance with head trauma. Thankfully, her neck wasn’t broken and her name’s not Humpty!</p>
<p>sk8rmom, I’d post some links, sounds like your district might benefit from hearing from parents across the US. These stories should become national, bullying needs to be a thing of the past.</p>
<p>sk8rmom</p>
<p>CNN’s anderson cooper has run very extensive programs on bullying in his daily 1 hour show. It looks like this is an issue they care a great deal about. I believe a couple of weeks back, he ran a different story everyday for a full week on this subject matter.</p>
<p>You might want to consider tipping the producer off on this story. It certainly deserves to get a national airing. It has to STOP!</p>
<p>This is such a heartbreaking and disturbing story. I truly hope justice is served in this case. I cannot even imagine what his family is going through.</p>
<p>I also would hope schools take just as much interest in what happens at bus stops as well as school property.</p>
<p>I agree shilly…I’m not sure what the superintendent meant when he said “this wasn’t really at the bus stop”, or something to that effect. Maybe because they were behind the tree, which is likely private property, and not on the curb…still, it seemed like splitting hairs a bit. The next story in the line-up on YNN yesterday was about the Oneida high school’s efforts cracking down on student smokers on a public sidewalk across the street from their high school. It seemed ironic that anti-smoking laws/policies are more easily enforced than anti-bullying ones.</p>
<p>2college, this is not the district (or county) that I live in. I grew up in a neighboring district but still have family and friends who live and work in Oneida. Atm, other than the news links, I don’t have any other links but will post ones that I come across and will certainly pass suggestions/links on to the family through my friend. As I said, the lid was quite tight on this story for days. An old friend, who lives a block from the school and has an elementary school-aged kid, called me out of the blue yesterday. She hadn’t heard a word about it until she saw the story on YNN yesterday. </p>
<p>Unless more people are aware of how widespread this is becoming, I’m afraid that children will continue to suffer in silence until their injuries become so serious that they’re forced to admit they’ve been abused by their peers. A single incident in a district is often just the tip of the iceberg but it seems that, too often, excuses are made for the bullies and/or blame is shifted to the victim. I think the truth is that it’s usually part of a culture among the students that tolerates this. Imo, kids themselves need to take a stand against this and parents and teachers have to support that by being available to really listen and watch the type of interactions that are going on right under their noses. Adults need to be vigilant about their own speech, and the examples they’re setting, as well. In my experience, kids who grow up seeing their role models take time to help others and speak up on social justice issues are less inclined to tolerate injustice in their own circles. I don’t think much of teachers who “buddy up” to the popular kids either, including my own…they should be concentrating their efforts on drawing out the shy kids and the kids who are experiencing problems. I am not a teacher but can walk into a roomful of teenagers and pinpoint the “weaker” ones within a few minutes of observation, and I’m fairly certain that any parent/educator could do the same. Out of all their accomplishments, the one thing that gives me hope that I’ve raised my kids to be good citizens is when I see/hear of them standing up for someone else or going out of their way to befriend a kid who is being picked on. That has a ripple effect and can change the whole atmosphere of a school…and just maybe that’s the antidote to this horrible epidemic.</p>
<p>These stories are beyond horrible.</p>
<p>Maybe my memories aren’t accurate, but I really don’t remember this kind of stuff from my own school years. Some teasing and meanness, but not to the extent that things are today.
But I think that the world has gotten meaner in general, adults as well as kids. Take politics for example. And what do we watch on TV? “You’re fired” “voted off the island”, people seem to find entertainment in seeing others suffer. New methods of communication have made it easier to be nasty and hide behind a “screen name” (even sometimes on cc).</p>
<p>I am also very dismayed that the schools do not do more to nip this in the bud. The schools where I live make a great deal of noise about “character” , but seem to confuse that with personality. An outgoing student who smiles at the right people in school is deemed to be of “good character” and given much attention in school, while the administration/teachers ignore the quieter students or those who just don’t fit in. Then they are surprised when something happens.</p>
<p>Keep us updated, sk8rmom. I’m so sorry this happened in your community. I’m just glad that the poor kid wasn’t killed.</p>
<p>I do hope that the bully’s names, or their parent’s names, get out on the internet. That way, the assulters will be marked for life. Of course the courts need to act on illegal activities, and the accused of ‘alleged bullying’ (or maybe the kid broke his own leg!) get slammed hard. I’d love to see the parents forced to attend some ethnic tolerance counseling, as these kids probably learned their hate at home.</p>
<p>I also hope that the bullied kid’s parents understand that the majority of Americans are appalled and sickened by this hate.</p>
<p>Four students have been charged in the incident, one with third-degree assault and the others with first-degree harrassment: [Oneida</a> youths face charges after bullying leads to a 12-year-old’s broken leg | syracuse.com](<a href=“http://www.syracuse.com/news/index.ssf/2010/11/oneida_youths_face_assault_and.html]Oneida”>Oneida youths face charges after bullying leads to a 12-year-old's broken leg - syracuse.com) Why this doesn’t qualify as a felony is beyond me - the victim has a broken leg, for God’s sake.</p>
<p>I remember that bus stop attacks were frequent when I was in middle school, though they didn’t take this extreme form. 6th and 7th grade boys had a pecking order of who could “take” whom, and there were many days when guys would pile off the bus and stand in a circle, watching as two of them slugged it out in the middle. It never occurred to the girls in my group to tell a responsible adult - we were fairly certain we’d be told to mind our own business. </p>
<p>Why did we feel that way? Many of us were bullied ourselves, if not physically, and we accepted it as the natural order of things. I don’t know if this may have been, in part, due to having grown up in a blue collar town with a poor school system. I wish today’s awareness programs had been in place then. Kids can’t protest bullying if they fear becoming victims themselves, or if they think adults don’t care.</p>
<p>frazzled1-While I agree with you that this should qualify as a felony, my understanding is that the victim’s broken leg occurred when he was thrown to the ground, not when he was beaten with the sticks. The difference in the law is that in order to rise to the commission of a felony, the defendant has to cause the physical injury by means of “a deadly weapon or a dangerous instrument.” If the tree limb was used to cause the injury, then I think felony assault would have been charged.</p>
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<p>Throwing someone out a 3rd floor window doesn’t qualify as a felony by that interpretation. I’m sure that is not the case. I think it smacks of minimizing the incident and keeping the perpetrators records felony-free.</p>
<p>We had an incident not far from where I live where someone of lesser intellegence was throwing heavy stones off a freeway overpass and killed someone in a car going by. The defense when fighting the murder charge tried to use the technicality of a rock not being a mechanical device (no moving parts) therefore not a weapon when contesting the use of a weapon in a felony. Jury didn’t buy it.</p>
<p>Trust me, there are plenty of people trying to bury this story quickly.</p>
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I’d like to know your source of info since you are from “the South” and this occurred in upstate NY.</p>
<p>Awful story – that poor boy. Once we were driving on the thruway and ended up behind a school bus. Some kid was punching out another kid at the very back of the bus. Other kids were cheering him on. The bus driver either had no idea or couldn’t pull over to stop it. I felt sick even witnessing it.</p>
<p>If this kind of stuff is ever going to happen, it would be in middle school. The kids think they’re organized, but their plans are right out there in the open, so people notice. Bullying is always there – in elementary school, in high school --but when kids are younger, there are more parental controls and supervision; in high school, the kids know how to avoid it or deal with it. In middle school, it’s like “the perfect storm” of bullying – kids with a little freedom, a lot of bravado, an increasing amount of testosterone, and a strong desire to prove themselves strong (by showing another to be weak). I could write some more but I’d get so angry I couldn’t sleep. Which is probably exactly how that boy’s parents feel. </p>
<p>Sick. Unecessary. And in large part, promulgated by the aggressor’s boys’ parents. They didn’t pick up this hostility from Facebook.</p>