Over
Video of the appalling harassment went viral yesterday, and one person had the bright idea to start an Indiegogo fundraiser for the woman, Karen Klein, so she could take a vacation.
As of
Klein, who lives near Rochester, has been deluged with media requests since the video went viral—she's booked to talk with Anderson Cooper on CNN and appear on Fox & Friends—and this morning she was interviewed by Good Morning America. "I was just was trying to ignore them,” Klein tells GMA. "Usually I sit right in back, and I should have that day, but I sat one seat ahead so there was one boy in back of me and one boy in front of me. They just kept it up. They thought it was funny.” Making a senior citizen cry by threatening to defecate in her mouth and stab her? Hilarious. One of the insults was even more sickening than we initially thought. In the video below, you can hear one of the boys say, "You don’t have a family because they all killed themselves because they didn’t want to be near you." The local ABC affiliate reports that Klein's oldest son killed himself ten years ago.Kline said she doesn’t want to see those boys expelled but would like to see them banned from riding the school bus for at least a year and not allowed to participate in team sports.
She adds that she's blown away by the public's response.
At a press conference Thursday, school officials said they are still investigating the incident, but promised strong disciplinary action.
See update on ABC News here.
Such mixed emotions here. Obviously it's deplorable the way the children acted and they should be severely punished. But as the parent of a 7th grader I know that they may have not known the pain they were causing (though where on earth do they come of using language like that at that age?!) NO offense whatsoever to the woman, but wasn't it her job to keep the kids in line, yet she barely said a word? I fear it's the current political-correctness and litigation-happy world that has adults afraid to disciple children at all anymore. Spare the rod and spoil the child-- at home and on the bus it's evident that these children need more guidance. It's not just the kids' failure, it's the adults.
ReplyDeleteI get your point about it "being her job" but when I picture a 68 year old part time senior citizen (she's makes about $15K a year) being harassed by a large group of boys, I'm not quite sure what she could have done. She was probably very afraid.
ReplyDeletePutting the responsibility back on the 68 year old woman doesn't give the kids an "out" - well, she didn't say anything so it's her own fault?
This is the parents fault. When we constantly hear from parents "my kids are my responsibility - you don't discipline them, I will" and then you see this kind of behavior, clearly some parents are NOT disciplining their kids.
I think some parents need to spend more time with their kids. The fact that the one father was surprised his kid acted like that shows he may not know his son all that well.
Watch the whole video - it goes on and on and on. This was just a little bit of name calling. The video is 10 minutes long. The boys couldn't stop....