Video shows Bus Monitor being abused/bullied by middle-school students [W:23]

[Sidgaf]

Re: Video shows Bus Monitor being abused/bullied by middle-school students

Give 'em about 500 hours community service, that should take care of their summer vacation.

 

[505]

Re: Video shows Bus Monitor being abused/bullied by middle-school students

Local news story just said the website has now raised over 300k. That is awesome! She said she plans to get an R/V and travel the U.S. for a year with the money. They also interviewed one of the kids parents... needless to say I definitely wouldn't want to be that young man.

Nice to see stories that actually have a happy ending these days.


ETA - Just checked and the site is currently sitting at 430k.

 

[Kal'Stang]

Re: Video shows Bus Monitor being abused/bullied by middle-school students

Thank god these kids are being punished. Thanks Hic and 505.

One thing I would like to note...It was the kids that took these videos and posted them on YouTube. Just goes to prove that stupidity knows no bounds.

 

[Risky Thicket]

Re: Video shows Bus Monitor being abused/bullied by middle-school students

Risky's Parenting Point No. 1 - Being a parent means sacrifice, and lots and lots and lots of it.

It means not taking your 6 year old to an R rated film because YOU didn't want to miss it. Learn to watch children's movies, and yes, you need to go with them.

Sacrifice means eating at McDonald's instead of your favorite sushi bar because you know your children are too loud and wormy to force their presence on the adults around you.

It means not taking your toddler to the public/private adult pool where it is very likely he/she will crap in the water. That's what baby pools are for. It means you'll sit at the baby pool and not read your book.

It means years of going on vacations to child centered places instead of the cool places you want to go.

It means not being your child's best friend when what your child really needs is for you to be a parent.

If you can't or don't want to sacrifice damn near everything you enjoy now for at least 18 years, then don't have a child.

And more and more just like the above.

It comes down to who or what you love the most. If "my child or children" isn't or wouldn't be your quick and immediate heartfelt answer then you have no business having children.

There's nothing at all wrong with not having children. If you do have children and if you aren't willing to sacrifice, then there's a very good chance you will have to deal with the ugly results later, such as the little turds in video.

There's no excuse for those children, unless they are severely emotionally disturbed. It's a parenting issue and in the case of two of the little pukes in the video, I'd say it's too late. Already others are having to deal with these kids, in middle school! They are already becoming society's problem.

I'd go so far as to say that the one mouthy little bastard has some issues that need to be addressed through some serious counseling. What that child said, how he said, even after Karen Klein was crying is not normal behavior. The child showed no remorse, he didn't back off for 10 minutes. What he said and did and Klein's reaction didn't appear to bother that child at all. A middle school sociopath? The school can certainly recommend that he be evaluated by a qualified person before he is allowed to return to school.

 

[Risky Thicket]

Re: Video shows Bus Monitor being abused/bullied by middle-school students

When I was a kid the bus aid monitor wouldn't have tolerated such ****. The second one of the kids popped off with something disrespectful the bus driver or bus monitor would have said "we will turn this bus right back around and your parents can pick you up and you will not be riding the bus and if the kids in question kept it up the bus driver would have literally turned the bus right back around. Although these days whoever is in charge probably doesn't let them do that out of fear of getting sued.

While I completely agree you are also correct when you say the driver cannot turn the bus around and go back. There may not be the appropriate personnel at the school to handle the children when the bus returns. Parents may not be able to be contacted AND you have all the good kids on the bus whose parents are waiting at bus stops to collect the kids. It is appropriate to pull over to a safe area, stop the bus and to call police to handle a situation that is getting out of control. The police would sort it out, remove the little turds and send the bus on its way while the cops take the little ****ers to jail or whatever.

 

[nota bene]

Re: Video shows Bus Monitor being abused/bullied by middle-school students

Unless there is an excruciatingly explicit school district law specifying the consequences of whatever, not much is going to happen criminally.

What's criminal, of course, is the idea, even given the middle-school peer pressure/mob effect, that these kids would say what they did. (Like the OP, I watched only a few minutes, but then I Googled and learned that among the taunts were that this older lady's family should kill themselves. This is NOT the point, but her son did commit suicide.)

I don't think there is any excuse for this kind of abuse, but I am willing to bet that in any given situation, half the parents will blame themselves or a divorce or oppositional defiance or ADD/ADHD or something...after securing legal representation.

Those kids didn't learn that taunting and abusing random adults was okay in a vacuum. My parents didn't beat me half to death...and I didn't beat my kids half to death either, LOL...but most of us had a vague sense of "The Line" by the time were were 3-4. As in, "I will be a dead boy/girl if...."

I can't explain the "mystery" of how parents establish "The Line"; I can only say that I knew better than to act this way when I was younger than these kids. And so did my own kids. I would've been dead if I'd done what these kids did. My kids would've been dead and knew it just the way I did.

So something is lacking in some parents' parenting skills these days. Kids don't act this way when the boundaries of civilized behavior have been established in their earliest years. Not usually, anyway, and when they do, they know they've screwed up.

Maybe "It's your thing--do what you wanna do" and "I'm okay/You're okay" are not...okay.

 

[tessaesque]

Re: Video shows Bus Monitor being abused/bullied by middle-school students

Unless there is an excruciatingly explicit school district law specifying the consequences of whatever, not much is going to happen criminally.

What's criminal, of course, is the idea, even given the middle-school peer pressure/mob effect, that these kids would say what they did. (Like the OP, I watched only a few minutes, but then I Googled and learned that among the taunts were that this older lady's family should kill themselves. This is NOT the point, but her son did commit suicide.)

I don't think there is any excuse for this kind of abuse, but I am willing to bet that in any given situation, half the parents will blame themselves or a divorce or oppositional defiance or ADD/ADHD or something...after securing legal representation.

Those kids didn't learn that taunting and abusing random adults was okay in a vacuum. My parents didn't beat me half to death...and I didn't beat my kids half to death either, LOL...but most of us had a vague sense of "The Line" by the time were were 3-4. As in, "I will be a dead boy/girl if...."

I can't explain the "mystery" of how parents establish "The Line"; I can only say that I knew better than to act this way when I was younger than these kids. And so did my own kids. I would've been dead if I'd done what these kids did. My kids would've been dead and knew it just the way I did.

So something is lacking in some parents' parenting skills these days. Kids don't act this way when the boundaries of civilized behavior have been established in their earliest years. Not usually, anyway, and when they do, they know they've screwed up.

Maybe "It's your thing--do what you wanna do" and "I'm okay/You're okay" are not...okay.

This. My father would have instituted severe and ongoing punishment if I had been one of the kids in this video. I'd have lost any privacy I'd been granted, I'd have lost my books and video games, I'd have lost my social life, I'd have lost future privileges, and I probably would have experienced a nice hard whippin'. Perhaps that's why I cannot fathom the behavior of these children...it never would have been okay in my household. Fear of my parent's reaction was definitely key to the way I treated people, even when I was an angry, skeptical teenager who refused to trust anybody. I knew what was okay and what wasn't, and I knew the reasons why.

 

[Anniegetyourgun]

Re: Video shows Bus Monitor being abused/bullied by middle-school students

Karen's vacation fund is up to $400,000.

http://m.cbsnews.com/fullstory.rbml?catid=57458238&feed_id=1&videofeed=null

"Police said Karen Klein does not want her young tormenters to face criminal charges, partly because of the storm of criticism leveled at the boys from the Rochester suburb of Greece after the video went viral."

"They've received death threats," Greece Police Capt. Steve Chatterton said Thursday. "Their families have been threatened. We have custody of one of their cellphones, and he had over 1,000 missed calls and 1,000 text messages threatening him. And he's 13 years old. That must stop."


While i dont agree with any threatening messages, I hope these boys are getting back a little of what they gave out and I hope those parents are humiliated by their children's horrible behavior.

 

[nota bene]

Re: Video shows Bus Monitor being abused/bullied by middle-school students

Girls too, I thought.

 

[ThePlayDrive]

Re: Video shows Bus Monitor being abused/bullied by middle-school students

Only on the news?..... How about the ones we run into every single day in the rest of the world? The 5 year olds who rule their homes through temper tantrums and an unwillingness to listen to anyone? The 12 year olds telling their parents to "**** OFF!!!" in public and such.

As a society we no longer EXPECT reasonable and decent behavior from children. That's the biggest problem.... We no longer set an EXPECTED level of behavior and decorum from children, so of course we're not going to get it. I see it from my girlfriend's nieces and nephews on a weekly basis. Compared to my own niece and nephews, they are hooligans. Mostly because there is no EXPECTATION for them to be anything else.

This, I agree with. I think a lot of parents and much of society have low expectations for children. There's a lot of complacency in our society in terms of behavior exemplified in the lazy response people often give to bullying, "It's just a part of life. Kids will be kids." That might apply to some behavior, but it certainly does not apply to stuff like this or to bullying in general. People need to raise their expectations for children and for themselves. If you have low expectations, those are the ones people will meet, in general.

 

[Solaris]

Hiya peeps!

This is just sick. Tha poor woman had ta endure cruel insults at tha hand of vicious punks. Tha little punks jabbed at tha most sensitive things, like tha suicide of her son. One of tha pieces a'excrement mentioned stabbing her. These kids had no mercy so ya have ta wonder if theydeserve any either. She might be willin' to let it slide, but tha police shouldn't. If ya don't teach 'em a lesson now someone's gonna pay fer it later. Maybe peeps need ta go back to tha 50's strictly in terms'a teachin' kids respect. Nowadays a lotta young peeps have no respect. These parents oughta be ashamed a'themselves. :sun

 

[nota bene]

The four boys (I mistakenly thought I heard a female voice when I listened to the first few minutes of the vid clip) have now received death threats, apparently thousands. Police patrols have been increased, so perhaps these kids (and their families) are experiencing consequences.

Here's a point made by one bullying expert:

Birchak [Stephen] noted that the kids are growing up in a world of harsh political debates and reality TV shows in which berating people is part of the entertainment. Meanwhile, taking videos of people in humiliating situations and sharing the images has become all too normal among many adolescents, "Kids are growing up saying, 'OK, this is how you treat your fellow human being and it's OK to do those things,'" he said.

Boys get death threats over their bullying of bus monitor Karen Klein - San Jose Mercury News

 

[tessaesque]

Re: Video shows Bus Monitor being abused/bullied by middle-school students

Karen's vacation fund is up to $400,000.

http://m.cbsnews.com/fullstory.rbml?catid=57458238&feed_id=1&videofeed=null

"Police said Karen Klein does not want her young tormenters to face criminal charges, partly because of the storm of criticism leveled at the boys from the Rochester suburb of Greece after the video went viral."

"They've received death threats," Greece Police Capt. Steve Chatterton said Thursday. "Their families have been threatened. We have custody of one of their cellphones, and he had over 1,000 missed calls and 1,000 text messages threatening him. And he's 13 years old. That must stop."


While i dont agree with any threatening messages, I hope these boys are getting back a little of what they gave out and I hope those parents are humiliated by their children's horrible behavior.

Wow, death threats and harassment of these kids seems awfully hypocritical, given the reason why people are so angry. I want to see all of the kids involved held accountable for their actions, but those punishments should come from the parents and the school district. If the district/city decides to press charges against them, fine...but damn.

 

[digsbe]

Re: Video shows Bus Monitor being abused/bullied by middle-school students

This is incredibly sad. It's an example of human cruelty. I'm shocked (well, not really) that middle school kids could be so openly profane and cruel to another human being (especially an elder). I hope the school throws the book at these kids and makes them an example so that those who somehow see this display of degeneracy as "cool" will think twice before growing up to be adult version of the little monsters that they currently are.

 

[Risky Thicket]

Re: Video shows Bus Monitor being abused/bullied by middle-school students

Karen Klein should press charges. The little bastards need to understand that actions have consequences. The legal system should be involved and the children most certainly need to go to individual and family counseling. Death threads are not the kind of counseling or punishment needed.

 

[cantdance4crap]

Re: Video shows Bus Monitor being abused/bullied by middle-school students

When some idiot came up with this "time-out" crap is when discipline started going to hell. The only "time-out" my kids got, is a "time-out" for me to spank their asses. Thank god, I turned out with three good kids, and I didn't have to do that often.

 

[Connery]

Two school bus bullies apologize to monitor after video of cruel treatment

Two middle school bullies have issued lukewarm apologies to the 68-year-old school bus monitor who they tormented, threatened and ultimately drove to tears.

Appearing on Anderson Cooper’s show Thursday night, Karen Klein, a bus monitor in upstate New York, spoke about the verbal abuse she endured when a group of students from Athena Middle School targeted her on the bus ride home Monday afternoon, then uploaded video of the cruel harassment to the Internet.

Cooper revealed two of the four students had issued statements of apology. “I am so sorry for the way I treated you,” one of the students, named Josh, said in a statement. “When I saw the video I was disgusted and could not believe I did that.” But Klein says she’s hesitant to believe the student is sincere. “Even if he wasn’t picking on me, it was something else,” Klein told Cooper. “So I just don’t think I would believe anything Josh had to say.”

Klein’s story went viral after a 10-minute video titled, “Making The Bus Monitor Cry,” was uploaded to YouTube earlier this week. The clip — which has gotten nearly four million hits — shows students relentlessly berating and taunting Klein, calling her a “fat a--,” threatening to stab her and urinate on her house, and suggesting her family kill themselves.

A fundraising website in Klein’s honor has raised more than $450,000 — enough for her to retire — but she says she has no plans to quit her job just yet.

“It’s a nice gesture, but I don’t know if it’s real or not,” she told Cooper. “It sounds too good to be true. On Wednesday, the father of one of the bullies told ABC News his family was receiving death threats. While Klein told Cooper she “doesn’t think” she will press criminal charges, both the school and local police are conducting an investigation."

Two school bus bullies apologize to monitor Karen Klein*after video of cruel treatment goes viral - NY Daily News

Bullied School Bus Monitor Karen Klein~~~Warning Graphic language.
Bullied School Bus Monitor Karen Klein - SHOCKING VIDEO OF BULLYING ELDERLY LADY!!! - YouTube

The cruelty of these teens cannot be measured. These disturbed people ganged up on a 68 year old woman in a bus of all places...:2mad:

 

[molten_dragon]

Re: Two school bus bullies apologize to monitor after video of cruel treatment

They threatened to kill her, video taped it, and put it on youtube? What a bunch of morons. Darwin will no doubt deal with them eventually.

 

[VanceMack]

Re: Two school bus bullies apologize to monitor after video of cruel treatment

Im shocked if somewhere out there lawyers arent lining up to file a suit against the families, the bus company, and the school district.

 

[Goshin]

Re: Two school bus bullies apologize to monitor after video of cruel treatment

Abominable behavior. If my son did anything half as bad he'd be lucky if..... well hell, I'd better not say, some of you might think me very extreme.

Let's just say that erasing such a blot on the family honor would be most difficult, and knowing that I'd raised a monster capable of doing something like that would be hard to live with.

 

[DiAnna]

Re: Video shows Bus Monitor being abused/bullied by middle-school students

I could only watch about half of it. I was appalled. Clearly this poor woman had received no real training on how to handle and control these children. She was probably just told that she could not lay her hands on them, under pain of termination and prosecution. I cannot think of any other reason she would allow them to abuse her in this way.

As for the children, absolutely shocking behavior. There is no way that kind of behavior is normal in any sense of the word. I hope they are severely punished, although I doubt they will be. I'm not surprised they are being bullied, threatened and taunted themselves. The death threats don't surprise me either. I watched far enough that those kids had escalated to throwing things at her, hitting her with what looked like a book, describing how they'd like to push knives into her fat belly and watch all the blood and goo run out... unimaginable things. If they got some of the same thrown right back at them via their precious cellphones, I really don't give a flying rat's ass. They deserved it.

 

[Goshin]

Re: Video shows Bus Monitor being abused/bullied by middle-school students

Moderator's Warning:

Merging dupe threads...

 

[vendur]

Re: Two school bus bullies apologize to monitor after video of cruel treatment

Im shocked if somewhere out there lawyers arent lining up to file a suit against the families, the bus company, and the school district.

For what, kids being like modern day kids?

This is how kids act even towards each other. These kids grow up, via the media, knowing there are certain segments of the population they are allowed to make fun of in any capacity they wish: old people, fat people, white people, blondes, and Christians. I'm pretty sure she qualifies for several of the "hate-able groups".

 

[lizzie]

Making The Bus Monitor Cry - YouTube

Could only watch this for a couple of minutes. Hope they figure out who these kids are and they are given a strong punishment. My child wouldn't see the light of day for a longtime if he did something like this. It scares me and saddens me that my children are growing up in this kind of society.

Those little animalistic children should just be glad that they aren't mine.

 

[Goshin]

Re: Video shows Bus Monitor being abused/bullied by middle-school students

It's very sad. I'm not saying there aren't tons of GREAT parents out there, and a ton more who are doing their damndest to raise good kids but not getting any of the help they need in doing so from society at large or anyone around them. However, the number of horrible parents I see on an almost daily basis staggers me. Kids who obviously RUN the homes they live in like tin pot dictators. I NEED this. GIVE ME that. BUY ME that. I wouldn't have been able to sit down (or speak) for a week if I'd done that to my parents. Yet we seem to constantly be amazed that these same kids grow up to be adults who can't, won't, and don't follow the law or get along in society. But heaven help the parent who actually verbally (nevermind physically) discipline's their child in a grocery store. They're liable to lose custody and be arrested for child abuse. It's insane.

Yeah, those are the stories that you hear.... but I never payed it any heed. I spanked my son in the middle of the mall once. A passerby stopped to stare, looking like he was going to say something, and I asked him if he wanted to be next. :mrgreen:

When he misbehaved in a restaurant he won a free trip to the bathroom for an attitude adjustment applied to the gluteous maximus. I brought him back out crying, and the other parents smiled at me and nodded as if to say "good man, that's the way, no worries".... hey I'm glad I live in the South.

I now have a very respectful and well-behaved teenager who I'm quite sure would never dream of saying anything half that bad to anyone, let alone a little old lady. Hell if my son had been on that bus he probably would have whupped some wholesale ass himself if he'd heard what they were saying to her.