School charges student for collecting proof of harassment

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This is about the administrators trying to avoid a lawsuit, pure and simple. They know they didn't protect the child from bullying. According to the mother's testimony, the child was bullied in a classroom in front of the teacher, book being slammed down. "What I only wanted to scare him." That right there is bullying and done right in front of the teacher with absolutely no consequences. So to cover their asses the administrators of the school, flip it around to make the victim into a criminal. Later, the school district will offer to drop the charges if the parents of the child do not sue the school for failing to protect him from bullying. First, they neglect the child then they throw him under the bus to cover their own asses, its disgraceful. All public employee unions need to be dismantled immediately because none of these administrators or teachers will be punished. All over the country you hear of teachers and school officials doing things that in a private sector would immediately get them fired. Short of raping children, it's almost impossible to get these pieces of s**t out of our public schools, and only because teachers unions have way too much power.

Yet another grotendous example of "authorities" abusing their power. A disgraceful example of victim-blaming.

This is 2014. Surveillance cameras are in all sort of locations. If if not the kids will have a probably have phone. Assault is a more serious offense then filming without consent

Point one: school officials usually side with bullies for that is the path of least resistance.

Point two: I was an extremely stubborn person who could run faster than most and I was actually used to being beaten (at home) so when it did happen, which was not often, I would pretend that it was not affecting me and they could not stand that! It usually happened to me when I was goaded into a fight.... I was able to do damage to people at times though when pushed too far. I never had any confidence in the authorities. Also, unlike many bullied people I actually did seek to provoke people at times... I suppose people can tell when they read my posts here.

In my opinion, this kid is a hero. This charge against him is clearly bogus and its legal foundation is shaky, to put it mildly. He took this risk and now the world can see this group of school officials and this judge for what they are. This is something that a real muckracking journalist would love to expose (not that we have many of them now)... I hope all this in the end turns out positively for the kid.

Perhaps we, as a community, should act like witnesses to this, and put pressure on the school (and others as incidents arise) whenever shabby violations of duty of care take place.

"We saw what you did, and you have some serious explaining to do."

Really?!


Security cameras in schools have grown in demand since Sandy Hook but not all schools have them. Even the ones that do won't have 100& coverage.


Many fights or assaults are over quickly before anyone thinks to and starts recording video. Even if they did there's no guaranty they'll take that to the office and report it.


Who said it wasn't?

I think a part of it is people don't want to be contaminated with guilt by osmosis. When something like this is brought to their attention they don't want to know about it because they feel it threatens them as well so they stick their fingers in their ears, close their eyes and pretend it isn't happening or they even lash out at the victim whom they feel threatens them with said contamination of guilt even though all they want is help. Ironically if people had the courage to act on behalf of victims they wouldn't need to worry about that. You see the same thing in instances like Catholic church sexual abuse or military, government or corporate whistle blowing. One victim is easier to destroy than a society wide problem. Sometimes I think people are just better off handling things themselves like this kid did. They should just be prepared to be made an example of. If you're gonna get screwed over you might as well get some blows in too. His only mistake was sharing the footage inside the institution where it happened. Of course they would destroy it and call the cops He should have started a blog with the videos uploaded and the names of the bullies included and copies ready to go to the local media if his blog was taken down after complaints from the bullies.

I had a similar experience but my recording was just voice recording on a phone when I went to confront people I worked for about things they'd been saying and then quit my job. I only secretly recorded because of the nature of some of the comments they'd been making at work and if the situation turned nasty I wanted proof that I didn't start any of the trouble. I also shaved my hair because it was too long to be walking into a situation like that. Sure enough at one point the two guys positioned themselves kind of off to my left and right at 45 degrees and one would occasionally go to walk around further so I would take a small step back to keep them both in front of me. In the end when they saw that I kept doing that and that I wasn't going to take a cheap shot easily their body language relaxed and it turned out I didn't need the recording after all because the two guys I spoke to then completely caved in like typical coward bullies when finally confronted. They said they had no idea what I was talking about and that they wanted me to stay. I remember one guy, Joel, saying something like 'if you ever want to come back don't even knock just walk straight in. F**k it, I'll take the door off the hinges!' Screw that. If they admitted what they'd done and offered to sort it out I could at least respect them and still walk away. But pretending they'd done nothing and begging me not to quit? All that did was have me near sobbing in my boxer shorts for the next two weeks playing xbox thinking about how hard they'd be working through Christmas without me there. Doing that to me makes me hate them more now than any of the actual bullying, the fact that they almost tricked me into staying and made me feel like a bad person. Now I always trust my instincts.

Yikes! That's a bit of an overgeneralization, don't you think??
I guess you did say MOST and not ALL but I know several principals that really do care - especially those in private schools.

Unfortunately you are correct. I see too much siding with bullies for the ease of moving forward. I think it was a great thing that this kid did and don't understand how they could have turned it on him...I also hope it all works out.

What part of "in my experience" are we having trouble comprehending?

So if you're being attacked inside a supermarket and you film it and go to the police, you're arrested for filming inside a private place and your attackers walk free?

I expect this doesn't end this way. This has a lot more serious ramifications than it seems - this being the USA, and with the whole world influenced by what they do in the US regarding human rights, private sites everywhere will become extremely dangerous. This is a dangerous antecedent. Moreover, Penn is considered a developed state outside the US, so all the more influence.

Classic case - it's illegal to take a photo of your ballot paper, and it's doubly illegal to remove it from a polling station.

We've had cases of ballot papers being folded in a way that hides UKIP on the ballot paper.

How does one prove this?