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When bullying escalates into a melee

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Geoffria

Junior Member
What is the name of your state? Arkansas (Home of Monster Tornadoes)

On February 4, a boy at my son's school managed to verbally harass, threaten, slap, shove, kick, punch and beat with a stick four of his classmates in less than an hour. These are 6th graders all.

This boy verbally harassed three boys. Of those three, he physically assaulted two, plus one girl.

By verbal harassment, I mean calling boys who are gymnasts or dancers or who have musical talent names like "*****", "******", "mother****er" and "****sucker". And commands like "Run, fat ass, run" to one of the bigger, smarter boys. And, to the gymnast, "Your push-ups suck. They're gymnastics push ups. Gymnastics is a girlie sport." It turns out that this verbal harassment has been going on relentlessly for a couple of months.

By physical assault, I mean slapping the big smart boy in the face when he is unable to run faster (with a little more verbal thrown in for good measure, "How'd you like that slap, fat ass ******?"); shoving another boy into a mud puddle; whipping a girl in the face with a jacket when she tries to intervene; pushing the mud puddle boy down on the ground and, while this boy is on his hands and knees, kicking and punching him in the ribs, and beating him on the back with a fallen tree branch; causing him to spit up blood and hyperventilate.

When he first picked up the big stick, bully boy threatened to "bash" the "faces in" of all three of the boys I mentioned above, those he had been verbally harassing. If it hadn't been for mud puddle boy tackling him and biting him in the back, he would have brained big smart boy: he was aiming the stick at the head of big smart boy, according to big smart boy, mud hero boy, and gymnast boy. Big smart boy says that if it weren't for mud hero boy, he'd be dead.

This is a rural school, and the walk they take between the high school (around which they run laps) and the middle school goes up a long, steep, wooded hill that is completely adult-free. This is where the incident took place. P.E. is unsupervised lately, too. Coach is most generally not available to run to and tell. When big smart boy went for help, the front office of the middle school was uninhabited, and the teachers were behind a locked classroom door.

School officials deemed the incident a scuffle and gave bully boy and mud hero boy five days of in-school suspension. Big smart boy got three days of in-school suspension for trying to block the stick with his lunch tote and for not going for help soon enough. Bully boy admitted to using the stick - in self-defense, he claimed. He was even allowed to go out and retrieve it. For all I know, the stick - or should I say "a" stick - remains there on the vice principal's desk.

Anyway, gymnast boy was deemed innocent and got no punishment. And though he was not physically assaulted, he was called nasty names, threatened with the stick, and emotionally traumatized from seeing his 3 friends assaulted.

All of this spilled from gymnast boy's mouth when I picked him up from school. He was blown away by what had happened. Big smart boy's mom called me and said her husband, while picking up big smart boy from school, encountered and questioned the principal about the incident. The principal, who was just then getting off work and into his red corvette, said he wasn't going to talk about the incident right then and that the vice principal was gone for the day.

Big smart boy's mom and I decided to go to the town marshal and file a report that would consist of what our sons had told us happened. The Marshal categorically refused to do it. He insisted that proper procedure was for him to wait for the school to contact him. Until then, he assured us, he wasn't about to file any reports for anyone that had anything to do with the school. We left the town marshal with no police report.

The next morning, the superintendent assured us that unsupervised areas of the school would become supervised. The vice principal assured us she was in the process of filing a report to local law enforcement authorities, under Act 1520 - a report that WE would NOT be allowed to see, she assured us. The School Resource Officer assured us that she was in the front office (break room) when big smart boy came looking for help. The principal sat low in his chair with a red face and said not a word.

Last Tuesday (the 12th), I phoned the town marshall to see if a report had been filed. He replied that no, of course no report had been filed, the school's taken care of everything and it's over and done with. I replied that I still wanted to file a report. He became very hostile and defensive, and after doing his best to discourage me from filing a report - to no avail - he hollered, so loud that big smart boy's mom heard him from across the room, "WELL YOU JUST COME ON DOWN THEN AND WE'LL FILE A GOTDANG REPORT!"

Uh, yeah... I'll be right down.

{Sidebar: Bully boy is a football player and, as the reporter said on "48 Hours Mystery" last Saturday night, our little all-American town is "football friendly". But my anger is not at the kid, it is at the power structure of the town, that will cover up this incident for God knows what unfathomable reasons and, in effect, block this kid from getting the help he so desperately needs. All this bullying he's doing is essentially a cry for help. They ignore his cry at their peril, as well as that of his future victims. Is my opinion.}

Well, I didn't go right down to the marshal's office. Didn't feel like putting my hand on that stove again. I steamed... and I fumed... for two or three days. I made an appointment with a private attorney. I spoke with the prosecuting attorney's office and got affidavits to fill out. I left a message for the mayor. I left a message for the president of the school board. I left a message for the county sheriff. The mayor and the school board president still haven't returned my calls. But the Sheriff did, today.

Today, the Sheriff filed two reports, one from me and one from big smart boy's mom. He's initiating the investigation we feel is no necessary.

So, how come I suddenly feel so ambivalent about it all? I'm sick and exhausted. And, really, I'm scared to death. :confused:

Any thoughts on the legalities of it all? Should I keep my appointment with my attorney?
 
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CdwJava

Senior Member
I'm not sure what you want from anyone here ... if what you say is true, there might be some problems. But, there is always another side of the story.

All you can do is report the assault to the police, and make the complaints to the school officials.

- Carl
 

Perky

Senior Member
I'm a little confused about a couple of things.

Did this occur during school hours?
If so, were they all in gym class, and why did one student have a lunch tote?
Since this has been happening for a couple of months, did any of the students report the bullying to a teacher or administrator?
Do you know the parents of "mud puddle boy"? Have they filed a report? If not, why not? It sounds as though he suffered the most serious injuries.
Why wasn't "gymnast" suspended, or otherwise punished, for not seeking help as "big smart boy" was?

As for your ambivalence, I suspect that you have had a chance to calm down from this very emotional and frustrating experience. Perhaps you are not so concerned with punishing the school personnel, but really want to know that the school will take incidents of this kind more seriously and investigate them more fully.
 

Geoffria

Junior Member
I'm not sure what you want from anyone here ...
Yeah, upon rereading my post I can see why you would be unsure what I want from this forum. I guess the purpose of that first post was to describe the situation. I do think I have some questions that could be answered here, though.

First, I would like to say that my main interest here is in achieving the highest good for all concerned. I have no interest in slanting the truth, or at least, the truth as my son and his friends have stated it from day, no, hour one. Their stories matched from the beginning and, believe me, they did not have time to get together and concoct one. I can also just tell by how my son is reacting to all this that he's telling the truth. He's a good-humored, gentle-natured person and now he's scared to go to school.

We're talking about a school here that recently had 2 students of color - and there aren't many in this school - arrested and expelled and 4 suspended for gang activity (crips and bloods-type stuff) and terroristic threatening. No physical violence occurred. Someone either threatened to kill someone else or himself.

Yet, in the case of the incident I have described, actual violence has been committed by a local white kid, with what I think can legally be described as a weapon, and he gets 5 days of in-school suspension.

Hey, there's a question. Assuming for the sake of argument that my son's version of the incident is true, can that stick be legally described as a weapon?

I might be able to formulate another question, and I apologize if it takes a lot of words to do it:

The vice principal said that, during her interview with him, big smart boy was crying hysterically and hyperventilating so that he could barely speak. The kid could barely even sign his name to the report that they sent to his parents. This is the version of big smart boy's involvement that she came up with: "Big smart boy got between two boys who were fighting and tried to hit one wth his lunch tote."

That was all. And this became the official school record.

Nothing about the ongoing verbal harassment, nothing about the slap in the face, nothing about the face bashing threat. School officials pretty much ignored the three victims' accounts of what happened, and my son gave a very cogent account that he stands by today (he has put in writing, too). They investigated this incident for all of about an hour and half, and then they closed it. I don't know, maybe I am crazy, but it seemed a whole lot more complex than that to me. It seemed worth a little more effort than that, if the truth was an objective at all.

I guess what I'd like to know is if school officials can be held legally accountable for not following their own policies. I've found several school regulations from their own handbook that they have flouted and even one law that they have flat out broken. It's Act 1520 (if you want you can goggle it under Act 1520 Arkansas), which requires school principles to report acts of violence and threats of violence to local law enforcement agencies and lays out the procedure that everyone is supposed to follow. It also states that "any person who purposely fails to report as required by this section shall be guilty of a Class C misdemeanor."

Any chance of bringing a principal, a vice principal, a school resource officer and a town marshal up on misdemeanor charges?

I do thank you for your time, and I won't bother you guys any more if it seems I'm just taking up space.
 
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CdwJava

Senior Member
Any chance of bringing a principal, a vice principal, a school resource officer and a town marshal up on misdemeanor charges?
For this? Your best recourse is a combination of personnel complaints and, perhaps, media attention to the problem.

From what you wrote, the incidents were reported to the police -well, to the sheriff's department. Upon reading the entire act there is no requirement for an arrest in the law, only that a report be made by the administration. There is a requirement that the law enforcement agency forward the case to the DA, but, even though the law says they have to report it to the DA the DA cannot prosecute without sufficient probable cause.

And the town marshal may not be obligated to take your third hand report of an incident that you were not a witness to. We don't have marshal's out here - at least not TOWN marshals - so I am not sure what the limits of that position's authority might be.

I doubt that anyone will prosecute for a failure to forward the matter to the DA ... though, you have no way of knowing if the matter was ever sent to the DA. But, it may still be too soon to send it forward.

If you have a gripe, I'd start with complaints to the various agencies - the schools and the law enforcement agency. If there is a hole in the process, then perhaps you should let them know.

- Carl
 

Geoffria

Junior Member
Did this occur during school hours?
Yes this happened during school hours. They go straight from lunch down to the high school for PE.

No, the ongoing verbal harassment had not been reported to a teacher or administrator at this point. My son had mentioned to me once that the was being called "gay", and I lamely told him to just ignore it and stay away from whoever was calling him names. Boy, do I regret that. But this was everyone's chance to address the problem, and in my opinion, the school really dropped the ball.

It turns out that there are at least five boys who have been harassed in this manner. More parents are becoming aware of it. Whether they will do anything or not remains to be seen.

Muddle puddle boy's parents are worried that he'll get in more trouble for biting bully boy, I think (even though, from a moral standpoint mud puddle boy did the absolute right thing). So, no, they haven't filed a report. But when I look at the big picture and weigh out possible consequences for pursuing this and for not pursuing it, well... If do pursue it, my son may lose some friends, and that's pretty sad for him. If I don't pursue it, odds are that bully boy will strike again, and that when he does, it will be worse. That could be pretty sad for a whole lot of folks. I get a bad feeling from this kid. He needs help, and I hope he gets it, for his own sake as well as that of his class mates.

Gymnast wasn't punished because he wasn't involved in any of the physical part of the incident. He didn't hit, push, kick, or block, he just witnessed and then took care of mud puddle boy when he was on the ground. What you say about him not going to get help soon enough (or at all) is very interesting, though. Uh oh. What if they rethink that?:eek:
 

Geoffria

Junior Member
For this? Your best recourse is a combination of personnel complaints and, perhaps, media attention to the problem.
I was kinda just kidding about bringing them up on charges. It's definitely not something I'm gonna pursue, although media attention is a good idea.

Perhaps I didn't make it clear that the vice principal never filed the report she claimed she was going to file (in our meeting with her, the principal, the superintendent, and the school resource officer). She did not file it. I filed a report yesterday, with the county sheriff, who is not considered the local law enforcement agency. The town marshal - yes, MARSHAL - is the first agency one would go to to report an incident at the school.

Also, I'm not expecting anyone to make an arrest. I just want the incident investigated a little more deeply than it has been. I want the school record and the public record to reflect the truth. As you said above, there is always more than one side to a story, and there's no telling what we may come up with here, but I have enough faith in my kid's integrity to back him one hundred percent.

BTW, my son was with me when we went to see the marshal, and he was ready to talk, so the report would not have been, uh, third hand, did you say? Hmmm.... My son witnessed it, and he told me about it, so my report would have been second hand, and his would have been first hand.
 
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sapapaliietene

Junior Member
Hello, two similar harrassing and assault incidents happen to my daughter by another student and during school hours. Let me share to you how I approached this matter.

First, upon hearing the incident details from my daughter, I immediately sent an email to the Principal and with cc's to the vice principal and all of my daughter's teachers. In the email I explained the incident in detail and also how very concerned I was about the situation. I further asked what was the schools or the district's policy on student on student harrassment and assault. I asked them to either email me the school policy or provide a website where I can find it. I also asked if a internal invesitagation was being conducted and what was the process for that, etc...

...you get my drift. You put the burden on the administration via email or certified mail, to prove they ensure safety and security for all students and that current policies and procedures for the school reflect that.

By the end of the day the principal emailed me all the information i requested and updated me with info until the issue was resolved. The last email I sent for the incident, I made sure all emails were in line and I cc'd a copy to the school board. Basically, I thanked them for their due diligence on the matter and congratulated them for keeping the school safe.

In short, always document your communications to the admin when dealing with such a serious subject.

The other approach I used was to have an informal meeting with all parents involved to discuss the incident and come up with the best ways to ensure it doesn't happen again. This, In my opinion was the best approach because our resolutions were explained to all the students via their parents.
 

stealth2

Under the Radar Member
We're talking about a school here that recently had 2 students of color - and there aren't many in this school - arrested and expelled and 4 suspended for gang activity (crips and bloods-type stuff) and terroristic threatening. No physical violence occurred. Someone either threatened to kill someone else or himself.

Yet, in the case of the incident I have described, actual violence has been committed by a local white kid, with what I think can legally be described as a weapon, and he gets 5 days of in-school suspension.
And what does race have to do with ANY of this?
 

quincy

Senior Member
Geoffria -

Carl had an excellent idea for you, that I would follow up on. He suggested you contact the media. I don't know what area of Arkansas you live in, but I would contact, not your local paper, but the largest newspaper that covers your area.

You are a beautiful writer, and I would, instead of calling them, write to the editor (managing editor or city editor - and put "personal" on the envelope) about the incidents that have been occurring at your son's school, with a follow-up phone call. You should explain the situation as you have here - the descriptive phrases make the story come alive to readers quite nicely, and can show the editor easily what you are dealing with.

The paper, if it feels there is a story here (and I believe there is), will do some investigating. Often media attention to a problem will get results faster than complaints to school officials.

(by the way, yes, a stick can be considered a weapon)
 
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CdwJava

Senior Member
I filed a report yesterday, with the county sheriff, who is not considered the local law enforcement agency. The town marshal - yes, MARSHAL - is the first agency one would go to to report an incident at the school.
Since when is the sheriff NOT a law enforcement official?

In any event, as you say, a report has been made. And, as I said, if you feel the school or the SRO or anyone else fouled up, you can contact their supervisors and complain. And, of course, there is still the option of the media info. But, beware, as the media may backfire because once they are on the prowl, there is no controlling the direction they take things.

BTW, my son was with me when we went to see the marshal, and he was ready to talk, so the report would not have been, uh, third hand, did you say? Hmmm.... My son witnessed it, and he told me about it, so my report would have been second hand, and his would have been first hand.
Being snippy is so unbecoming.

Perhaps, next time you'll write it more clearly ... "Big smart boy's mom and I decided to go to the town marshal ..."

Good luck.

- Carl
 

quincy

Senior Member
Yes, once the media starts "prowling", there is no controlling them. :)

I think there is a story here worth pursuing - and with the recent school shootings, kid violence of any kind gets media coverage - and with good reason.

There are rules in place for schools across the country to follow, to stop bullying behavior before it erupts into something more serious. If schools are lax about following these rules in sixth grade, stick-weapons are more likely to become gun-weapons.

Of course, I think the way sapapaliietene handled the situation in her daughter's school is preferable - but if you have a school administration that is not listening or responding to your concerns, the media may be helpful in pointing out areas of needed reform, to ensure your child's school is safe for all attending.
 

CdwJava

Senior Member
Yes, once the media starts "prowling", there is no controlling them. :)
Well ... once they are let loose on a story, there is no guarantee that you ... er, THEY ;) ... will pursue it in the direction you want. They MAY find out that the alleged victims here were not so innocent.

Of course, I think the way sapapaliietene handled the situation in her daughter's school is preferable - but if you have a school administration that is not listening or responding to your concerns, the media may be helpful in pointing out areas of needed reform, to ensure your child's school is safe for all attending.
And, of course, pursuing it up the food chains in the respective agencies or administrations as necessary. If the higher-ups are not aware of a problem, they cannot act to change any failed process. And, trust me, the LAST place the Admin folks want to hear about an internal problem is in the media ... that kind of things will do less to encourage immediate change and will tend only to solidify the problem as the agencies or district "circles the wagons" as a knee-jerk defensive reaction.

- Carl
 

quincy

Senior Member
Hmmm. I have never noticed circling wagons - although I have experienced slammed doors and an awful lot of "no comment"s. :D
 

CdwJava

Senior Member
Hmmm. I have never noticed circling wagons - although I have experienced slammed doors and an awful lot of "no comment"s. :D
That's part of the circled wagons ... you haven't noticed the settlers in the room beyond the closing doors? ;)

- Carl
 

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