To file, or not to file.... (criminal charges)

In My Humble Opinion
1

Brief introductory explanation: Dweezil was hit at school a few weeks ago, by a kid who ran up behind him, hit him, and ran off, with his head covered. A day or two later, a student in his special-ed math class began bragging that “I ‘STOLE’ you, haha” (“stole” apparently being slang for “hit”). Dweezil and the other boy are in 8th grade, at middle school. Dweezil has mild autism, and the other boy, who knows (but given that he’s in special-ed math, has issues of some sort).

It happened again this week, only in the locker room, and the boy didn’t cover his head. So Dweezil was able to identify him this time.

he boy has been suspended for the rest of the school year (1 week remaining). The principal in charge of the middle school (Mr. M) mentioned in the email that we could consider filing charges.

Our first reaction was we weren’t eager to do so. As I said to Typo Knig in an email:

On the other hand, this has now happened twice. Assuming this was the same kid both times, the first time was really premeditated. And Mr. M was explicit in an email we got this morning:

The “impaired judgement” remark was because this boy is in Dweezil’s math class - i.e. special ed self-contained math, which implies he’s got autism, a learning disability, or whatever. Now, I an NOT someone who will (in my kid’s case) try to play the disability card to get him out of trouble. Yet here I am willing to play that to keep another kid out of trouble.

Discussions welcome.

It’s not a good feeling, to have the power to contribute to the messing-up of someone else’s kid. Most days, I’m not too sure about the power to screw up my own kids!

2

I guess my question is, will filing charges make it more likely that the school will juggle schedules to keep the boys separated? Because if the answer to that question is yes, I’d file charges. At least I think I would.

Alternately, (and even harder for you to predict, I think), will filing charges make the other boy’s parents more likely to try to relocate him to a different school to protect him from those overreactive idiots who are filing charges over “innocent” behavior? Or will having charges filed otherwise make the parents more likely to try to change the boy’s behavior? If so, I’d again be inclined to file charges.

But I’m not sure I’d file charges just because the principal has reached his limit in dealing with this boy. Even though a reluctance on the part of most people to get involved in such a case is precisely why sometimes when charges are finally filed there are 15 people lined up to report on previous incidents as a pattern of behavior.

BTW: I think you forgot to change your son’s name to Dweezil in a couple of spots in your e-mail.

3

Crap - so I did! If a Mod happens to be walking by, could that get corrected? I missed the edit window. Not a huge deal if his real name is left in, but I usually prefer to avoid it. Would you mind reporting that post for me since I can’t report my own?

4

Speaking from another side (having been a lawyer practicing both in ed law and juvenile criminal law) I would speak to the principal in as frank a manner as possible. It is sometimes the case that nothing will get a child help other than getting them into the system. Which requires someone to file charges.

I realize the system is supposed to be the bad guy, evil and corrupt and so on, but this is not universally the case. Sometimes it is.

However, why the school does not file charges is a mystery to me, if they want charges filed.

5

Not enough information. It sounds like this could be a pattern of violent behavior on the part of the other child not confined to your son, and the Principal is expressing frustration at the failure of within-school disciplinary options to deal with it. How violent were the hits? Maybe how violent were the hits on other children?

I’d schedule an in-person meeting with the Principal to discuss the matter. One thing is for sure - if my son was having to go to class with this other child, I’d not want to have him exposed repeatedly to violent behavior by another child, if that behaviour was really out-of-control (that is, not part of the usual give and take of childhood, but something more serious).

6

I don’t have kids, so I’m probably way out of my league here but filing charges? As in criminal charges? As in the other kid (who is obviously a bit of a buttole but still) will end up with a juvinile record as a result of some horseplay? Is this what goes on in schools today?

I mean sure, if he mercilessly beat your kid to within an inch of his life that’s a different story, but I really don’t think that he onus that would come with having a criminal record is doing that kid or your kid any bit of good in the long run.

ETA- I know I misspelled butthole above, but I kind of like it that way.

7

I am gobsmacked that people would even consider filing criminal charges against a child but maybe that’s how the world works these days. Was it necessary to seek medical attention after the kid was hit? From your OP I can’t quite work out whether this was a full-on assault or simply an impulsive smack around the ears.

Surely a better option is to have a meeting with both families (including the children) and the school principal/teacher present, and for the principal to advise the perpetrators parents that his behaviour was unacceptable and any further incidents may result in his expulsion from the school?

8

Done.

Filing charges seems really extreme. I’d like to know just how violent the attacks were as well.

9

I’m thinking it’s entirely possible that Dweezil is not the first or even the tenth kid this kid is smacking. In my experience with teachers and administrators, if they’re at the point where they’re advocating filing charges against kids already in a special-needs kind of program, it’s because the kid isn’t responding to any other form of discipline and they’re flat out of options.

It’s one thing for kids to be horsing around and playing and someone gets a whap, but this kid isn’t doing that. From the information we have, this kid is hitting people just to hit people. That’s inappropriate in any circumstance, and really inappropriate in a school.

My advice (for what it’s worth) is to schedule a sit-down with the principal and get some more information - like if Dweezil is the only victim (like maybe this kid has something personal against him for some reason) or if the kid is just randomly violent. You’ll want to know this anyway if there’s any chance Dweezil will be in classes with this kid next year. I might also inquire why the principal is advocating pressing charges - maybe he’s out of other ways to deal with this kid. Or maybe he’s faced with parents of the other kid who refuse to help him ingrain the lesson that it’s not okay to hit other people in their kid and is hoping filing charges will get it through to them that there’s a serious problem here. I could see a principal advocating filing charges as a method to help the kid’s parents understand the depth of the problem. Maybe the kid’s parents are firmly of the “My little angel would never do anything wrong” camp.

10

Is done.

11

Here’s my experience, which may color my advice.

When Hallboy was in third grade, he began a downward slide regarding school. Each morning was a battle to get him ready and on the bus. He cried and became combative. He hated school, and I couldn’t figure out why. I had regular teacher meetings, was a classroom mom, etc. Come to find out, there was one boy in his class terrorizing not only Hallboy, but others. Little things like pushing in the hallway, that gradually moved to bigger things, like knocking Hallboy’s head into the wall. Did it cause a concussion? No, but daily things like this quickly add up, until Hallboy was terrified of going to school. The teacher, with her 20+ third graders did what she could, but it made no impact. The principal, with her many students, did what she could, but it made no impact. This kid was suspended, etc. but still continued to terrorize not only Hallboy, but others. Finally, I made it absolutely clear to the school (teacher, principal, school nurse) that if Hallboy came home with ONE MORE MARK ON HIS BODY, then I would contact my attorney and the press, and not in that order, and both would be at their doorsteps within the hour. (Did I mention that Hallboy often had “unexplainable” bruising, that we later discovered were a result of the hits, pushes and shoves delivered by the other kid?)

The following year, I moved Hallboy to a private school, largely in part of the limitations within the public school system. It took TWO SOLID YEARS of individual counseling with a family and child therapist, plus TWO SOLID YEARS of working with the new school and Hallboy before he could feel safe going to school. Still, today, five, almost six years later, he can recall in vivid detail the daily torture he endured while at that school. (The school later lost its charter and was forced to close down. During that time, there were several “incidents” similiar to our which became public.)

My advice? Press charges. No one should have to fear going to school.

12

Dweezil should not have to feel uncomfortable being in school but there are a multitude of problems here that need to be addressed.

Firstly, there are consequences to being the kid whose parents brought the law into the situation. Dweezil is fighting uphill every day. Why add to his burden. There is a guy being paid about 80 grand a year to handle this shit and provide a safe space for the children in his care. He would like you to handle his problem. F him.

What they are telling you is that they don’t have any one in their employ with the skills to handle this problem so they have been warehousing this child and they’re tired of it. The school district has counselors, lawyers, a school board, most likely a gym teacher, and vast resources you don’t. But they just can’t seem to marshal those resources to solve this. Just like with Hallboy, they just can’t seem to figure it out. A sure sign that incompetent asswipes have charge of our most precious resource. What are they doing for Dweezil? Warehousing him also?

The district owes it to your child to fix this, fix it now, and fix it so it doesn’t recur. But they also owe that other child the best shot at life he can get. Maybe that’s nothing, maybe they can really do something for him. It doesn’t matter, they owe him the best they can do professionally. Tagging him with a record should be an anathema to anyone in that profession. A last resort worst case decision that the school after some soul searching feels they have to take. Not something they con a parent into doing. What they would like is an excuse for why their failure wasn’t their fault. You and Dweezil are the perfect out for them. These people are no different than service workers you deal with every day making excuses for why they couldn’t do their jobs.

Finally, the only person you owe anything to is Dweezil. If they can’t meet his needs get him out of there. Don’t wait to see if it might get better. Dweezil has a limited amount of time left to get the tools he needs to carry him through life.

13

Pressing charges at this stage of the game seems absurd to me. And it also seems to me that the principal wants you to do his dirty work.

I would suggest a meeting with the principal and the other kid’s parents first, to get a better understanding of the big picture. I would also want to know what other disciplinary action the school has taken and why, if the kid is totally uncontrollable, they can’t ultimately expel him.

14

I’m a bit torn. On the one hand, I think unless your son suffered physical damage, charges should not be filed. Would the bully even understand what was going on? On the other hand, maybe filing charges will finally pound some sense into this kid and his parents.

I find the principal’s comment I am frustrated and have reached my limit interesting. Does this mean the principal has tried repeatedly to deal with this kid and his parents to no avail, and feels filing criminal charges is the only thing left to do?

We did file charges against a bully who was tormenting Ivyboy, but he had smashed his lip so hard against his braces that he was bleeding and we had to take him to the doctor. The boy was suitably chastened by the juvenile intervention process, wrote a letter of apology to my son, and never bothered him again.

So, if this was a one-off, I wouldn’t. But if this kid has a pattern of bullying other children, and the measures the school has taken hasn’t worked, then yes…file charges.

15

Well, yeah - that’s exactly what the principal was talking about.

I see both sides. Yeah, two hits over several weeks is not in the same league as a full-blown beating, but technically it does still qualify as assault.

Whether formal charges are overkill in this situation is something that we are wrestling with. And as you noted, it may not do either kid much good in the long run.

Others have commented that it’s quite possible this is part of a long pattern of misbehavior on the part of the boy in question, and that there’s a lot we don’t know. VERY true, and we’ll be meeting with the principal some time in the next couple of days to discuss the whole situation. I’d like to know more of the “back story” myself, as much as they can tell us without blowing confidentiality. I’m not eager for us to be used as pawns to get the kid dealt with.

One reason I’m not inclined to want to go nuclear (aside from my natural mama-bear instincts which involve ripping the faces off anyone who mistreats My Little Snookums): My son, being autistic, looks normal but just weird enough that he is a natural target for teasing. One of his quirks is that he hates the ABC song. Yeah, the song every toddler knows. If you sing it around him, he gets really, really upset. Is this a really stupid quirk? Yeah. Is there anything we can do to cure it? apparently not. Might as well get angry at a cat for scratching the furniture, or a dog for barking at cats.

Other kids in his grade school found out about this and used to tease him by singing this. It seemed to stop last year in middle school, but word got around the middle school last fall and it became a wildly popular pastime. Kids who didn’t know him were doing it. HIGH SCHOOL kids (the middle and high schools connect via a couple of hallways) were doing it.

My son was very distressed by all of this. To the point where he told a school counselor about some thoughts he’d been having, that a zero-tolerance approach (of even mentioning the thoughts) could have cause him to be suspended or expelled.

Anyway - the school could very well have reacted to that by going nuclear at what he said. But they didn’t. PHEW. Because they knew, and we knew, and the family counselor knew, that it was *just * a very frustrated and unhappy kid verbalizing his angry feelings. So… my kid was treated fairly and with understanding, and I’d like to do the same with this kid.

For everyone who’s responded so far, thanks. You’ve all given us a lot to think about and please keep opinions coming.

16

Mamma Zappa, I have a PDD-nos kid, so I understand what you’re saying. Having thoughts and expressing them to a counsellor is quite different from acting out though, and I’m glad your school behaved reasonably around that situation. I’m sure you’re not the only one who was cut a little slack on an unreasonable rule though. I mean, one Monday morning, in grade 6, my son went to school with a knife in his backpack. We had used his backpack as a picnic bag over the weekend, and had used the knife to cut up apples. As soon as he saw that it was still in there, he went and told the teacher, gave her the knife, but that should have been an automatic weeks expulsion in this district. I live 10 miles away from Columbine you see. . .

Anyway, I did have my other, more typical son in a situation like this. He was bitten by a classmate, hard enough to draw blood. He just ran up behind him and bit my son on his back. This other child clearly has issues. He is special needs of some kind. He is verbally and physically abusive to the other students, and to adults sometimes too when he really gets out of hand. A lot of stuff, he just gets away with and had gotten away with it for years; he was doing inappropriate things in kindergarten. I do have sympathy for him and his family. I’m sure he’d rather be a typical kid, given the choice and I know how it feels to have a kid who is different.

When he bit my son, I filed a police report. I don’t know if that’s the same as pressing charges. I did not ask for any compensation for time spent taking my kid to the doctor, co-pays on the visit and the antibiotics. What I wanted was for this child and his family to understand that there comes a time where this stuff has to stop. When this happened, my son was in fifth grade. You don’t bite people in fifth grade! I wanted this documented so that if he did it again, it would be considered more serious, part of a pattern, and dealt with. So, I reported it to the police, they came over, took my statement, went to the school, got a statement from them, visited the other family at their home. That’s all that happened. There were no more incidents that I’m aware of for the rest of fifth and sixth grades. Now, so far as I know, this boy was not in any of my son’s 7th grade classes. I hope he’s doing well and not biting people.

It seems to me that kids of Dweezle’s age should not be hitting. At this stage, since he’s done it twice, it should be reported just to document it. If it were me, I would report this to the police.

17

There was a young boy my son’s age who was a bully and had a terrible temper. He would also bully other kids (physically as well as verbally) then cry and pretend he was the victim when caught. My husband & I are convinced that the boy has many issues that aren’t being addressed by his parents (a whole 'nuther thread, frankly). This went on at school for years.

Anyway, one day on the playground, my son (age 8) scored a soccer goal on this kid (also age 8), and the kid came unglued- very angry, crying, screaming at my son that he had cheated. My kid is a good kid and swore he hadn’t cheated, and the yard lady who was watching agreed. My son kept trying to apologize because he felt bad that the other boy was upset, but after being screamed at some more, he just walked away to play somewhere else, still sad.

The other boy walked to a table, grabbed a metal chair, and began stalking my son with it while his back was to him. The yard lady saw it and started to run towards them. Just as she got there, the other boy swung the chair over his head and tried to bring it down on the back of my son’s skull. The yard lady was injured blocking the shot.

At first, the school wasn’t going to do anything (the mind boggles). I mentioned that we were going to file a police report, and the child was immediately expelled. We didn’t make a report, but I feel like we should have. This child will continue to exhibit violent behavior, and needs help desperately. Apparently the parents have still done nothing, just changed schools and never got him any help at all.

I swear to God, I expect 10 years from now there will be a Dahmer-type thing on TV and we’ll see that boy and go :eek: .

If there is a pattern of aggression (or if the child’s IEP can be changed to address this new concern), then take it to the limit. If not for Yard Lady on the spot, my son might have ended up in the hospital or worse.

18

To the questions of whether or not the school can’t just expel the hitter, chances are that they can’t. The rules are that every child is due an education and it’s up to the schools to make whatever accommodations they need to make to educate that child. In many districts there aren’t any available alternative options for discipline/other cases, so the kids get warehoused. Maybe there’s alternatives at the middle school or high school level and the elementary is just stuck doing the best they can, but in my experience, expulsion isn’t a viable option, particularly in elementary.

19

:eek: KEE-RAP!!! And the school didn’t take adequate action until you threatened them??? What a band of effing MORONS. I am so sorry you and your son went through all that.

I must say, the school is being reasonably responsive in our case. One thing that shades their actions is, a few years ago, a student (boy) who’d been systematically teased and bullied actually did take his own life. So they do tend to leap on reports of bullying.

20

It sounds like your experience is just the tip of the iceberg. I’m really surprised the principal would advocate it because if the parent of the other child found out…

Too often in situations like these there’s a bully and you can only see how it affects your child. Maybe there are a dozen other children whose parents are noticing the same things but if none of you are pooling information, you don’t realize what an epidemic this kid is.