DHS Alumni Message Board

I'm giving this a generic title, since it seems to make the news more and more. Things have changed since we were growing up. I know bullying has been happening for a long time, but it seems to have gotten more intense (and sexual) in recent years. Attitudes such as the one of the parent towards the end of the article mean that things won't be getting better any time soon. I can understand wanting to support your children, but some things just aren't acceptable and the actions and resulting consequences of those actions should not be "a normal life."


School bullying, once a silent battle, now a crime
AP

By CHRISTINE ARMARIO, Associated Press Writer Christine Armario, Associated Press Writer – 2 hrs 30 mins ago

TAMPA, Fla. – In a Tampa middle school locker room, prosecutors say four flag football players held down a younger teammate and committed a horrifying assault: Raping him with a hockey stick and a broom handle.

"Don't do it again or this is going to happen to you again," a witness says he heard one of the boys say in the April attack.

Two decades ago, the attack may have stayed a secret. Victims of hazing, bullying and sexual assault are still often too terrified to report their attackers — though officials say that's starting to change.

Police are called to investigate everything from cyber-bullying and schoolyard fights to brutal hazing rituals, and tormenters can be prosecuted under anti-bullying laws in dozens of states. Proactive parents aren't afraid to confront school officials or take the matter to court, and schools are training students and teachers alike to spot and report bullying.

"Back in the old days it was, 'Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me,'" said Kevin Quinn, a school resource officer in Arizona and regional director of the National Association of School Resource Officers. "In today's day and age, words do hurt and that's how a lot of the bullying begins."

Thirty-two percent of students ages 12 to 18 nationwide had experienced bullying within the past school year in 2007, according to a report by the U.S. Education Department and the U.S. Justice Department. That number was slightly higher than the year before — though officials say it's not because bullying is more frequent, but because it's more often reported.

Parents are taking more action as well, including filing more lawsuits.

"The reason it's picking up momentum is not necessarily the frequency of the bullying, but the manner in which people are engaging in bullying," said Joe Braun, a Cincinnati attorney who sued on behalf of the family of a high school basketball player attacked by three teammates while waiting for a bus to take them to practice in Milford, Ohio. "It's starting to become more physical, more sexual, and it's not just emotional bullying like we've seen in the past."

According to the lawsuit, the teens held the boy on the ground and punched him in the stomach. One of them exposed himself and rubbed his genitals on the boy's face.

Other accusations of particularly cruel incidents have led to lawsuits and criminal charges. In South Florida, two high school students have been charged with stalking and battery for allegedly restraining a freshman in the school locker room. One of the teens admitted he did "pretend to rape him," according to a police affidavit.

And a school district in Bakersfield, Calif., along with several students and their parents, paid $260,000 to settle a lawsuit after debate team members encased a younger student in plastic wrap and tape in a hotel room before a competition.

The Tampa case has stunned the region for its brutality, the young age of the four students accused and the fact it happened on school grounds. Equally surprising were the characteristics of the accused: One is the son of a police officer, and several are promising athletes and students who took honors classes. Each has been charged with multiple counts of sexual battery.

"It's going to be a situation where they're looking at it saying, 'How could someone with this type of background, this type of character, be charged with something like this?'" said Timothy Taylor, an attorney for one of the accused boys.

The bullying had gone on for months, officials said, unbeknownst to the boys' coach, school administrators and the victim's parents, until the teen finally snapped.

Assistant State Attorney Kimberly Hindman said at a June hearing that the boys were fighting after a botched play during a flag football game. A school official intervened when the feud spilled into the locker room, and the teen later said he was "tired of them getting on me."

When the four suspects were called in by school officials, they were asked to write explanations of what happened.

It was then that administrators learned the boy had been penetrated with a broom and hockey stick.

Hindman described it as an "intentional terroristic act" that occurred multiple times previously.

"Why doesn't the victim tell immediately when something like this is happening?" Hindman asked. "I don't know, judge. But there are witnesses, independent eyewitnesses, who saw the acts taking place. Some of those witnesses will describe the victim screaming when it was happening. Fighting them and he told them to stop."

The suspects' families have expressed a combination of shock, denial and support.

"I just don't think that he deserved this," one defendant's mother said in court.

"Deserved what?" Circuit Judge Wayne Timmerman replied.

"Whatever the accusations that was made," she said. "I just want him to live a normal life."

The 13-year-old victim, who is not being identified because he was the victim of an alleged sexual assault, said a few words himself before the judge set bond.

"When my family members figured out about this, they started crying," he said. "My dad was furious. He couldn't even say nothing. He couldn't look at me. He said, 'Why couldn't you tell me?'"

It always amuses me when things like "One is the son of a police officer, and several are promising athletes and students who took honors classes" are printed, as if that really makes a difference anymore...or ever did.

Just because someone is the son/daughter of a cop or they are honor students doesn't mean that they aren't capable of things such as this. Life isn't that black and white. How do we know that the cop doesn't beat his kids or act like a bully to others, showing his kids that it's okay? The fact that they are honors students just makes them a bit better in school subjects than some other kids.

Well, too, I don't see anything in this article to indicate things are any different now than they were before now. For example, I had genitals put in my face in the weight room in high school (as I was attempting to bench press 285 pounds--makes it tough to defend yourself with your hands when they're that occupied, but, trying to bite someone will get them to remove their "stuff" from your face pretty quickly). Of course, I didn't see that as bullying, but rather as teammates being teammates. Idiots, sure, but teammates. I never engaged in that sort of thing. Most don't. And some people just plain don't like it. I understand that. And they shouldn't have to put up with it. But, it's not any different now, I don't think. We just have a 24/7 news cycle to report it, as well as lawyers and parents willing to pursue it into court (where, some of it should go--like the raping with the hockey stick case--but not 99.9% of it).

As for it getting better? It's always existed. From the beginning of time. Rape, too. I'm not saying it's right, I'm just saying that it is what it is.

I know bullying has always been around and will always be around. I even agree that there have been some extreme knee-jerk reactions on what is classified as bullying. (We encountered this with my oldest child's first-grade teacher.) However, I think the part of the article that bothered me the most was that anyone could possibly consider what happened in Tampa to simply be a part of "kids just being kids" and there should be no life-altering consequence. Perhaps it's just a case of a parent in denial, but there were independent eyewitnesses and written confessions. That apparent attitude of "kids being kids" in such a case is what I find truly abhorrent.

Agreed, Sheri. In the case of rape, there is not ever an excuse (I hope that I didn't imply that there was, or that this case doesn't deserve to be prosecuted!). And the parents of the bullies are idiots if they even vaguely hint at mimimizing what occurred. I think it says an awful lot about them, actually (as Steve alluded to when discussing the idea that it was so surprising that kids from these parents were wrapped up in this...).

I was more addressing this part: Things have changed since we were growing up. I know bullying has been happening for a long time, but it seems to have gotten more intense (and sexual) in recent years.

There's a difference between the embarrassing, but generally harmless stuff that used to be considered "bullying" 20-30 years ago and this. Kids have changed. The kids (typical boys) who were sneaking peaks at their Dad's Playboy or Hustler magazines or seeking out "gory" photos in war history books and medical texts back in the day now have almost as much sex and twice as much gore just on network television. If they go to the internet, there's a whole world of uncensored porn and violence at their fingertips, and don't think for a second that many of them aren't seeking it out.

These kids are becoming seriously desensitized, and they think of things like "rape" as a joke. Combine that with a little peer pressure and mob mentality, and things get scary pretty quickly.

Frankly, this type of thing is terrifying. Something like this happened with some kids from a school in Bellmore NY a few years ago at a football camp. I think kids who do stuff like that SHOULD be arrested, put on trial, and if found guilty, punished accordingly. Rape is not a joke. Saying mean things is NOT the same as taking a broom and shoving it into someone and violating them. That kind of act doesn't just cause physical pain and injury, it causes years of emotional trauma. Maybe it's time to have some sort of supervision in locker rooms? I hate to say that, because who polices the security guards?

And yes, this should be "life altering" for the kids who decided to rape the boy.

I guess, in my mind, I can understand some of it as "joking around" but most of the stuff cited in this article seemed to be more in a "punishment" frame of mind. I'm not sure which instance Keith's experience would fit into, but the genitals in the face in the article included beating up the victim. To me, that would put it into the "punishment" category and I just don't think it's acceptable. (I'm not sure I think the "playing around" is acceptable either, but I can understand it a little better.)

I agree with Shad about the exposure as well. I made the comment today to one of my oldest child's doctors that we are trying to let our kids be little kids while they are young. (I was asking for a resource to help me explain the stages of puberty to my oldest.) I know several kids who have been allowed to watch CSI since the age of 4 or 5. The parents see nothing wrong with it. I, however, don't think it's an appropriate show for that age group. Unfortunately, even with all of the resources so readily available, kids still aren't necessarily getting the correct information or the tools to process it.

We monitor what our kids watch on t.v. (there aren't many family-friendly shows on t.v. these days) and we monitor what sites they visit on the internet. While I don't watch over them 24/7, they do know what is and isn't allowed and have been known to tell others that they aren't allowed to watch a certain show (even when we aren't present). Does that mean they never make bad choices? Of course not, but in our house, there are consequences and we follow through with them. I've even told them that they might as well learn now that there are consequences (some good, some bad) to every action that they take.

While I agree that things are more available, I think it's a stretch to say that kids have changed. Kids are kids and they'll access what they can access. People have been saying since the Puritan days that "kids these days...". It's in all of the literature. I'm sure it was said before, I'm just not familiar with that literature. I mean, name a time period, I'll find you didactic writing warning against the moral downfall of society.

count me among those who believe things like this have always been happening...they've just been more hidden/secret in the past. perhaps part of the reason kids *are* more willing to tell when traumatic things like this happen to them is because they *are* more aware now, through the media, that they happen to others, too.