I agree, except insofar as you imply that Casey being lucky and the other kid being lucky are mutually exclusive.
Your post is naive in the extreme. Read the news. You know all those stories about people who defend themselves and get accused of using too much force and end up facing criminal charges?
Casey came about this close to being in one of those stories.
No, your post is naive in the extreme.
No, I don’t know “all those stories” of people defending themselves and end up facing criminal charges.
Quite frankly, I am flabbergasted that anyone could possibly think that after years of torment he should say “Now Billy, if you hit me, I’m going to tell teacher on you.”
That little shit got exactly what he deserved.
Princhester is right, Floaty. In most US states (if not all) fighting is illegal, and any injury or death caused by fighting can result in a felony conviction. NOTE: I didn’t say “will result” because a defendant can try and make the case that the death resulted from necessary self-defense; such a defense doesn’t always win out, however.
Frankly, your posts don’t appear to show a grasp of the distinction between whether the little shit got exactly what he deserved (a point I think no one, least of all me, are disagreeing with you about) and whether what Casey did was, for his sake, wise.
Mine was. I tried to get it to stop by telling the teacher. That just amped up the bullying. To this day I still wish I had gone a little psycho.
I think in a fairly clear-cut case of retaliating to overt provocation, like in this video (which is its own evidence), such defenses generally do win out. Lets face it, a young teenager being bullied by a younger kid and retaliating by body-slamming him isn’t going to go to prison even if the younger kid had died or ended up quadriplegic.
I dimly remember an episode of Walker, Texas Ranger that addressed bullying, and built to the point: 9 times out of 10, standing up to a bully will lead to the bully either walking away or getting their ass handed to them. That tenth time, though, the bully WILL pound the everloving fuck out of you. If that happens – go down fighting, and make it messy. 
If Richard punched first, Richard started it.
In my experience, teachers were either wholly ineffectual (or made things worse) if they actually tried to help, didn’t care about bullying, told me “don’t be a tattletale”, took the side of the bully in every dispute, were bullies themselves, or actively and openly encouraged the bullies.
How many different teachers did you try? Did you later try someone higher in the administration, or did you give up after one attempt?
Most people give up after trying one teacher. I can’t blame kids for thinking this because they don’t know better, but not all teachers suck at dealing with bullies. You just have to find the right one.
That why it’s often better to tell parents, because they are better at finding the right person to deal with the problem.
To me this video is hard to judge. The skinny kid looks like he wants to fight (not just bully) the big one. I’m thinking there is backstory here.
When I was in about 5th grade I remember doing the same thing as the skinny kid, trying to start a fight with kid that didn’t want to fight. I don’t even remember why is the weird thing.
Multiple teachers and vice principles and principles in different schools, over a period of years.
And then, as if that weren’t enough, Walker tells you you have AIDS.
My guess is that as a (a) provoked (b) juvenile Casey would not have faced prison. But if I recall my long ago law lectures on crim correctly (a dubious proposition) provocation isn’t necessarily going to get you out of criminal sanction entirely if the force you use is disproportionate.
I would have my doubts that Casey would necessarily have been in the clear if the Little Shit had suffered serious injury. I’d like the opinion of someone who knows. Wonder if **Noel **is about?
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Wanna hear something awesome!? I was suspended from school for having a straightened paperclip. They said it was a weapon…it was the paper clip the teacher gave me (3rd grade) to do a project; I didn’t need it. I just straightened it out. Then I accidentally poked someone with it. I got suspended for that.
Shortly afterwards…I actually grabbed a pen and jokingly brandished it as a “weapon” in imitation of some soldiers we were learning about. Got detention. AWESOME!
But even more awesome…and this takes the cake. In my senior year of high school a fellow classmate in a basic electronics class took an exacto knife (ya know, little razor knife for craft projects) and as I walked by pretended to “jump me”. Ya know, like just go “boo!” and scare me with it, without actually thrusting it towards me, just holding it out in front of him. Well…my reflexes got the best of me and I immediately deflected it … into his face. I put a hole clear through his cheek!
Didn’t get suspended…or detention. Either of us. Legitimate weapon involved…actual horseplay involved…actual injury occurred. No punishment. AWESOME! :smack:
So yeah…I have a real issue with “authority figures”, especially in the school system, who have any sort of “judgement” afforded them. They will almost always misuse it.
Really? I could be mistaken (I don’t have a cite), but isn’t that often schools’ official position? I’m sure I was told by teachers as a kid that I should never fight back in these situations*. Unless you mean ‘in this thread’, in which case fair enough.
I realise this was just an aside, but I thought it was worth pointing out that that’s true of lots of violent adults too.
I’m totally sympathetic to the idea that Casey’s response was maybe a bit ill-conceived, but for what it’s worth, I don’t think it’s comparable to repeatedly slamming a kid’s face into concrete. And more importantly, it wouldn’t have been equivalent even if Casey had been unlucky and seriously injured Richard. Casey fought back exactly once, to get Richard to stop - he didn’t ground-stomp the kid or anything. I can’t really think of a way to fight back that would simultaneously stop the attacker from further attacks and carry no risk of injuring the attacker.
Heh - indeed. As my grandpa always said, “If you’re caught in bed with the general’s daughter, deny it.” He was a lawyer.
Anyway, I think it’s important to remember that violence between kids isn’t really taken as seriously as violence between adults, for whatever reason, and that may be relevant when determining appropriate response. I knew a guy where I used to work who was always a bit verbally aggressive towards me and made lots of threats of physical violence. It wasn’t as serious as that makes it sound - he was just a tool and I seriously doubt he would have tried anything - but it gave me reason to occasionally wonder what I would have done if he’d thrown a punch at me or something. But it was pretty simple - if he had, unless there had been exactly zero witnesses, he’d have been fired immediately, and if I’d been seriously hurt there might have been criminal proceedings thrown into the mix. Certainly I would never be expected to be friendly with him. When you’re a kid, that’s not the case. A bit of random violence is expected and normal, and while the teachers in theory will try to stop it (I’ve never personally witnessed any success on this front but I’m sure it happens) it’s generally not considered the big deal it is when you’re adult. So in my case, with my coworker, it’d probably be a really bad idea to body-slam the guy in response to violence, but in my opinion that consideration doesn’t translate well to the school yard.
*I’m willing to concede that you could differentiate between ‘fighting back’ and ‘defending yourself’, but in at least some cases they are the same thing.
Fun story about bullying.
6th grade, on the school bus. Guy forces himself into my seat (an 8th grader who always picked on me - bigger and all that) and I resist, insisting that he’s just gonna pick on me and I don’t want to deal with it.
He says no, Deal with it punk. I say no, and clock him in the face. Only…he put his hands up and redirected my hand into his forehead. I broke my hand, the snap could be heard by everyone, and they all thought I just cracked my knuckle. He then pounds me down into the seat and sits there anyway.
Three days later My dad takes me to the doctor, x ray, cast, all that. (he thought it wasn’t broken…dummy). I come into school with a bright blue cast halfway up my forearm. After that, the bully was - I shit you not - my friend and protector.
Weird the way things work out…Now if I have kids, they will know how to protect themselves, but will know how important it is to not fight, to not punch, and only end fights, never start them. I have never thrown a punch since that day, and I have put down plenty of people.
Bullies suck, but kids gotta learn somewhere how to deal with the a-holes that exist in this world.
Boy how times have changed.
I remember one time a bully had taken my bike and wouldn’t give it back. I got so frustrated with the kid, I went and told my dad. My Dad’s response? “Deal with this yourself son. It’s all part of being a man. Also, that bike had better be in the garage by sundown.”
This basically translates to: Get the bike back from the bully or deal with my dad’s belt.
I got my bike back from the bully. Luckily, he didn’t care enough about the bike to fight about it.
No but my point is more that body slamming the Little Shit was approximately the equivalent of grabbing him and punching him. In other words, where Casey is now is about where Andrew was after the first incident. Giving Casey unqualified fame and suggesting he did entirely the right thing is equivalent to giving Andrew the respect and notoriety he got after the first time. I don’t know exactly what was going through Andrew’s head (apart from a red mist) on the second occasion, but I think the respect and notoriety he got after the first probably caused him to take the brakes off a bit.
I was bullied by a little shit like that back when I was age 12 and a very tall, shy girl. I was also much bigger than the bully. When I complained to my mother and my school counselor, they both said, “He just likes you and doesn’t know how to show it.” Total bullshit of course. He just saw a victim he could play.
One day he returned to his desk in Health class and knocked all the books and papers off my desk, bearing a sniggering grin as he did so. I just reached out and grabbed the front of his shirt and pulled. He banged into my desk and tripped over the spilled papers. I popped all but one button off his shirt. The teacher told the kid to sit down and me to pick up the papers and stay after class. After everyone had left, the teacher said, “I’ve been wondering when you would fight back. You should talk to your counselor about him you know.” I told him I had done so but wasn’t getting any help. He said I should work on controlling my temper and then let me go. Oddly, I don’t know if anything happened behind the scenes but boy bully never bothered me again.