This is what I find amazing. Usually they hide behind zero tolerance and throw both kids out of school for fighting. Good for them! And good for you for pressing charges!
Yes. My son repeatedly tried to ignore them and de-escalate the situation, and when he wouldn’t take the bait, they jumped him.
Here’s some more details on what led up to the attack:
My son got a hall pass to use the bathroom during class. When he walked into the bathroom these two kids were there kicking a soccer ball around. He made a comment to them like “You shouldn’t be doing that in here, you’re gonna get busted.” He didn’t threaten to rat them out. He was just warning them.
This ticked them off and they started harassing him at the urinal. One of them bounced the soccer ball off the back of his head. My son’s attitude was like “Whatever, you guys are jerks.” But then one of them snatched his hall pass and ran off with it. My son chased him and when he was about to catch him the kid threw the hall pass down. My son retrieved it, then headed upstairs to class. They threw the soccer ball at him again as he went upstairs.
My son thought that was the end of it, but when he was out on the yard during lunch they tracked him down. They shoved him, and when he tried to walk away, they grabbed him from behind, spun him around, threw him to the ground, jumped on him, and started hitting him. That’s when the other kids on the yard saw what was going on and intervened.
Fortunately they didn’t land any punches on his face. Besides the injured toe, he’s got some bruises and a deep scrape on one knee where he hit the ground.
This wasn’t a “fight”. My son didn’t even know these kids. He happened to walk into the bathroom at the wrong time and they were spoiling for trouble.
You did the right thing. This is not a harmless punch in the arm between friends, it is an assault and battery. Hope they go to juvie.
The school security officer made it clear that they weren’t even going to go after the kids who came to my son’s defense, even though they suspect they threw some punches too.
Apparently the attackers tried to claim that my son started it and the security officer just laughed at them. Besides the fact that they had witnesses that said otherwise, my son is really mild-mannered and sweet and everyone at the school knows it. The idea of him starting a fight is ridiculous.
You may want to think twice about pressing any charges.
Your son goes into a bathroom and makes a statement that is regarded by the bullies as a threat. “If you play soccer in the bathroom you will get into trouble.” This was taken to mean, “I’m gonna tell on you.” Whether or not this was intended this is how it was taken.
The kids jump him. Now you are gonna press charges, for which the kids will get a slap on the wrist and that’s about it. You think the kids are gonna say, “Wow, we learned our lesson. We won’t do it again”?
Probably the only thing they’ll learn, is the next time they jump your kid, they’ll make sure they’ll be no witnesses.
I’m not saying you shouldn’t press charges, but you may be ultimately staring a war that’s gonna last the entire time your son is in school.
And don’t forget,while others backed your son up from being jumped, when it gets around he was going to tell on the others (and whether he was or not, doesn’t matter, it’s a rumor that will get around), he’s gonna have the burden of being the snitch, to carry as well.
As a person who got jumped before, (in 1997 I got jumped and they broke 7 of my teeth) you want revenge, but you gotta weigh all your options and think about the kid
Markxxx they may have been true when we were kids but I don’t think that is the case today. With all the negative press bullying has been getting these days I’m sure it will be more than a slap on the wrist.
My prediction is the parents will get a hefty fine, then the parents will come down hard on their children.
I love how people manufacture dramatic scenarios in these threads. It’s going to get around the school that the OP’s kid is a snitch! A snitch, I tells ya! And everyone knows what happens to a snitch in the big house!
Dude, whatever. The administration of the school, the kid’s classmates, and the kid’s parents are all supporting him in this. Pressing charges was the right move.
There’s no way in hell I’m telling my son to just suck it up. And if they school doesn’t do what’s necessary to keep my son safe, there will be hell to pay.
This particular school has a vested interest in taking this seriously. About 20 years ago a group of parents made concerted effort to “reclaim” our local elementary schools. As a result, three of the schools that feed into my son’s middle school are among the best in the city.
Now we’re trying to do the same thing with the middle school. If all the kids who went to the three powerhouse elementary schools continued on to their neighborhood middle school it would be an amazing place. Unfortunately, parents get cold feet and send their kids to private school or magnet schools and the neighborhood middle school languishes.
So the principal cares A LOT about convincing nice middle class families with bright kids that they should send their kids to the neighborhood school. An incident like this, handled poorly, could undo a lot of the work she’s done.
Look in the mirror. You feel that costing the parents a couple grand for a lawyer is a good thing. Yet you don’t seem to consider the implications of this. Not many families nowadays have a couple grand laying around. Having to hire a lawyer for Billy might mean that little Timmy doesn’t get piano lessons this year, or little Suzie has to quit the hockey team.
And what exactly does Juvie mean for this kid? Do you really think kids go into Juvie and come out well adjusted adults? Of course not. Juvie is full of real delinquents. The kids that are in gangs or are putting other kids in the hospital. Those are the influences this kid will be exposed to, and that sure as shit isn’t going to help his behavior. To continue further, what will the disruption of his school and social life going to do to this kid? No school sports, no school band, no activities that could be a positive influence on the kids life.
No, the people in this thread are the ones who aren’t thinking this through. Putting a kid in the court system is very damaging and serious, and should only be considered as a last resort.
Everyone is wildly overreacting to this incident. A kid limping for a couple hours after a fight doesn’t need to be taken to a doctor or interviewed by cops. He needs to get some ice cream and be taken to a movie. A kid being a bully doesn’t need to be arrested and tossed into juvie. He needs to have detention and be suspended. A middle school does not need a police officer. It needs a principal.
A couple stories from my school career:
(1) In 5th or 6th grade, IIRC, I made fun of some kid and compared his ‘girlfriend’ to a warthog. He decided to start a fight on the playground. It’s too bad this little Hitler didn’t get tossed into jail for the rest of his life. Or maybe I should have been arrested for harassment and defamation.
(2) 7th grade. I walked up to some kid in the hall and punched him in the spine. Why? I haven’t the slightest idea. I barely knew the kid, he hadn’t done anything to me, and I wasn’t mad. Maybe I just thought it was funny, I dunno. I suppose I should consider myself lucky that I didn’t have a middle school cop to taze me and toss me into Juvie.
(3) Freshman year of high school. We were required to show our IDs to get on the bus to go home. I made some commented to the effect of, “If I was going to bomb a school bus I wouldn’t forget my ID”. That got me two days of in school suspension. Guess I am lucky I didn’t rendered to Gitmo and waterboarded.
Kids who do stuff like this without any tangible consequences keep doing this shit in the adult world. at least until they end up in a real prison, or dead.
sorry, no. They’ve already shown the classic “it wasn’t my fault” behavior of sociopaths. They’ve already intentionally caused serious injury to a person trying to get away from the situation, and did so with an unfair advantage in manpower. Detention, suspension? That’s for cheating on a test. This is assault and battery, full stop. These worthless shits aren’t going to magically be nice people starting on their 18th birthday.
boo-fucking-hoo. hey you know what? he wouldn’t have this problem at all if he didn’t go around attacking other kids.
Bullying ‘Not that Big a Deal’, Claims Former Bully
I strongly agree with your decision to press charges, Hamster King. I doubt it will come to much in terms of punishment, but more importantly this incident should be on their record. If there is a “next time,” the next victim will be grateful to you for the record of this incident as it will show a pattern.
There has to be a point in a kids life where you understand that you are responsible for your actions. If you’re going to go around attacking people, that should be corrected sharply and immediately. In average families you learn this lesson sooner. By the time you are in middle school, you should know better. You would do these bullies no favors in letting them get away with it.
My son was bitten on the back of his shoulder by another student on the playground when he was in 5th grade. That would make him about 11 at the time I guess. My son was bitten so hard that he bled. Since this was a human bite, we had to go to the doctor, who administered a tetanus shot among other things.
I was an at home Mom who had knowledge of the biter through my time volunteering at the school. Biter did have some special needs, but was also known to bully kids on the playground - especially younger kids. At least four of the mothers that I knew personally had learned of things he had done to their children. Fairly minor schoolyard stuff, but alarming in it’s regularity. Verbal threats and also physical contact. By the time you are in fifth grade you should know better than to run up and bite people!!
I was not informed of the incident (when my son was bitten) by the school or by my son. I heard about it from another Mom who heard about it from her son, who was in the same class as my son. I did not take the biter to court, but I did call the police and file a report. They took that report and discussed it with the family of the boy who bit my son. I felt that was enough, but in your situation and in middle school instead of elementary school, I would absolutely press charges. It’s owed to your kid, the witness/classmates who stepped up to help, to the school and to the bullies.
Back in my day, an incident like this would have ended with the attackers getting paddled by the principal. Frankly, I think that way of handling it would do about as much good as anything else. That said, things are very different today. Pressing charges seems like the appropriate thing to do under the circumstances. Had they been adults, they’d probably be charged with aggravated assault (due to the broken bone). That’s a felony that carries serious prison time. In my state, depending on the kids’ records, it could be a ticket to reform school.
Glad your child is relatively ok. I agree the attackers may consider retaliation. Might want to ask the police/prosecutor/Youth Court Judge about a “no contact” order–ie, the attackers are given the equivalent of a restraining order. Any further harassment of your son is cause for immediate arrest and escalating punishment.
Hmm, you guys are really convincing me of the take them out back and shooting them option. Clearly if they are bullies at 11, then there is no hope.
He is also a kid and doesn’t deserve to have his life ruined over what is a relatively minor incident in the grand scheme of things.
Ha! If you had any idea of what I was like as a kid you would realize how ridiculous this statement is.
Ha! If you don’t want people to think you were a bully you should probably not mention the time you punched another kid in the spine for no reason.
Also, “a kid limping after a fight doesn’t need to be taken to the doctor”? Really? If my kid is limping for pretty much any reason, I’m taking him to the doctor.
you’ve given us an idea of what you were like. in two of your examples, you made fun of some other kid and his girlfriend, and punched another kid w/o any provocation.
you were a bully, and by your posts in this thread you haven’t learned a damn thing. Like I said, a sociopath never thinks he’s done anything wrong.
As coincidence would have it, I was punched in the spine in middle school, while waiting in line for lunch, by a kid I barely knew who was about half again as tall as I was. He came up behind me while I was talking to a friend and hit me with enough force that it sent an electric shock the length of my spine and almost brought me to my knees. I’d never even spoken to him before, but I’d seen him picking on other kids and had tried to avoid him. There were no consequences, other than a good laugh for him and a few hours’ pain and humiliation for me. No doubt he went on to achieve great things.
Who knows, maybe you and I are long-lost friends.
So a deep abrasion, bruising and a broken bone constitutes a minor incident.
What level of injury is allowed before it becomes major?
If he doesn’t want his life ruined, then he shouldn’t engage in violent, anti-social behavior.
Are you insane? I had a limp dozens, if not hundreds of times as a kid from various sports and stupid stunts. Every twisted ankle and stubbed toe does not require medical attention.
You don’t know me or what the hell you are talking about.
Good lord, I didn’t think the hyperbole could get any worse, but there you have it. Make fun of some kid’s girlfriend when you are 9 and you are a sociopath.