Kid Takes a Beating on the Bus - Racial? UPDATE: Post #75

[OceanAnnie]

http://www.stltoday.com/stltoday/ne...60D37B6EC5FF4711862576320011605B?OpenDocument

http://videos.stltoday.com/p/video?id=6172583

Actually, he was beaten twice. I saw the clip and it made me sick. The media is downplaying it. "It might be racially motivated." At least the police think it is racially motivated. It looks like the kid was trying to find a seat!

What the heck is going on these days??

 

[Kim&Chris]

Wow, that was really brutal. If it was racially motivated, it will probably be downplayed. But who knows? Sad.

 

[luvmy3]

I can't tell from the video if they were shouting racial slurs while pounding on the kid. What I can tell is that these kids are a bunch of low life animals

 

[OceanAnnie]

Why didn't the bus driver step in? It sounds like the bus driver yelling at the kids to sit down. But it was okay to beat this kid? None of the other kids came to help him? In fact, the others cheered him on. Sick.

 

[Shutterbug]

Why didn't the bus driver step in?

It may be against procedures for the driver to leave his seat.

On the note about the spokesman NOW saying it may not be racially motivated..would the spokesman have back paddled if it had been the other way around?

 

[lillygator]

disgusting.

 

[swald91]

OceanAnnie I was wondering the same thing???? I couldn't hear anything as far as racial slurs go but I did notice 1 kid try a little to stop it...it's very sad & then you wonder why you hear stories of kids bringing guns/knives to school. I wonder if this kid was too afraid to tell someone about it. I know I am a very protective mother & if that was my kid I'd want to get a hold of those brats myself...I know violence doesn't solve any answers but learning to defend yourself will help. It shouldn't matter the color of your skin but I guess bullying comes in all colors...just sad.. If I was the driver I would have pulled the bus over-& then told the school district that the ones that started it I wouldn't pick up anymore...I mean you can't expect the driver to babysit the kids that age & safely drive the bus...JMO

 

[OceanAnnie]

It may be against procedures for the driver to leave his seat.

On the note about the spokesman NOW saying it may not be racially motivated..would the spokesman have back paddled if it had been the other way around?

Even so, the driver could've yelled stop hitting that boy! I'm taking all that are fighting to the office. Something! He could've stopped the bus at some point. I can't imagine it's okay to let this sort of thing happen twice.

I think the bus driver is culpable in this incident too. He let it go on. He knew the kids were up and had to have seen. Those that were beating him were in full view and it went on a long time. Sad. So sick.

 

[BeachGirlFLA]

I agree with the PP who called it disgusting. If it had been the other way around (a bunch of white kids beating up one African-American kid), you know there would be a huge outcry calling it racially motivated and those calling it racially motivated would have been correct.

 

[LoraJ]

I didn't hear any racial slurs. There were white kids on the side laughing. There was definite bullying going on, but I don't know if it was racially motivated. The other white kids did not look afraid.

 

[Stitchfans]

Being an ex school bus driver I know for a fact that the driver has a radio in his bus that he could of used to call his office to inform the dispatcher, and they could of had the police there in a few minutes. If it were me I would of pulled over until the police came. Shut down that bus stand up and yell my head off at the kids doing the beating.

 

[Shutterbug]

Even so, the driver could've yelled stop hitting that boy! I'm taking all that are fighting to the office. Something! He could've stopped the bus at some point. I can't imagine it's okay to let this sort of thing happen twice.

I think the bus driver is culpable in this incident too. He let it go on. He knew the kids were up and had to have seen. Those that were beating him were in full view and it went on a long time. Sad. So sick.

I agree that he should have at least radioed in for help or something. Its just my speculation that they have rules in place that the driver is not to leave the wheel and physically interact with the students regardless of the situation. What if the driver left the drivers seat to stop the fight and one of the kids jumped into the drivers seat and drove the bus into an accident where people got hurt or killed?

Now if the driver did absolutely nothing at all, then that is deplorable. Again not knowing what their operating procedures are makes it difficult to know if he followed them.

 

[Pea-n-Me]

I don't know if it's racial (inclined to doubt it based on what I see on the video), however it is pack mentality at its worst and I hope that those responsible are punished severely, expelled from school, and banished from the bus. My heart breaks for the boy who just wanted a seat somewhere.

 

[wvjules]

White kid beating black kid and black kid beating white kid are not always racially motivated. Some people just fight and color has nothign to do with it. However if racial slurs were being yelled then yes I would agree that it is possibly racial.

It may be against procedures for the driver to leave his seat.

Ummm, hello!?!? A kid is being beaten on the school bus. IMO, it is the bus drivers moral responsibility to get out of his seat to stop the beating.

 

[luvmy3]

White kid beating black kid and black kid beating white kid are not always racially motivated. Some people just fight and color has nothign to do with it. However if racial slurs were being yelled then yes I would agree that it is possibly racial.





Ummm, hello!?!? A kid is being beaten on the school bus. IMO, it is the bus drivers moral responsibility to get out of his seat to stop the beating.

That is true, but if it were a group of white students beating on a black student the media would pick it up in a heartbeat and denote that it is a racially motivated attack. It would most likely make National news.

 

[ChrizJen]

It's obviously been all over our local news, and while I would venture to say that race probably played some part in it, I would have to withhold my judgement on that based on what was being said at the time.

As for the bus driver, I don't expect a school bus driver to jump into the middle of a beating, but as another poster stated, all of those buses are equiped with radios that he/she could have used to have the police dispatched.

It's disturbing to watch, and I feel really sad for the boy involved. I hope severe charges are filed against ALL of the idiots who were involved. And the ones who stood by and laughed...well I just hope that they get theirs someday.

 

[Free4Life11]

It's only racially motivated if the victim is black.

 

[RyeCrimsonMoon]

I don't think it's 100% racial. I think the kid just happened to pick an open seat next to the wrong person. If you look, there are two or three white kids cheering him on while he beat him and a black kid trying to stop it.

The media might be down playing it because it's another case of bullying, but the real problem was the bus driver. It doesn't matter if she could leave her seat or not, she should have done something. I almost got kicked off my bus when I was younger for sticking my feet out and blocking a little big of a window (I did it a lot to make my bus driver mad, she was a prick). So she defiantly could have done something about a kid being beaten.

 

[ChrizJen]

I don't think it's 100% racial. I think the kid just happened to pick an open seat next to the wrong person. If you look, there are two or three white kids cheering him on while he beat him and a black kid trying to stop it.

The media might be down playing it because it's another case of bullying, but the real problem was the bus driver. It doesn't matter if she could leave her seat or not, she should have done something. I almost got kicked off my bus when I was younger for sticking my feet out and blocking a little big of a window (I did it a lot to make my bus driver mad, she was a prick). So she defiantly could have done something about a kid being beaten.

I agree that the driver should have done something. The police should definitely have been involved. The only reason I say that I don't expect a bus driver to try to break it up is that I know someone who tried to do that. She ended up with a broken collarbone and a dislocated hip. She tried to step in and was taken down by several of the attackers. But SOMETHING could have been done in this case without the driver having to physically step in.

 

[Luv2Scrap]

I am sitting here in my cubicle, choking back tears.

The kid's face is blurred out, but the hair is so similar to my 12 year old son's. The thought that your child could go through something like this... it doesn't matter the reason. If it's true that this bus driver sat there and did absolutely nothing (which from everything I've heard and read, is true), than that person should not be allowed to keep their job. Part of their job is to keep order on the bus. You don't need to leave your seat to call for help.

I needed an "ethics in the news" article for my Management Ethics class. I think I just found a good one.