The Death of a 12-year-old from Bullying

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   SpanStarposted 11 years ago

   America has talked about the effects of bullying and the impact it has on people and society. Clearly I can see no good coming from bullying.
   
   http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/03 … pital?lite
   
   I'm a bit confused regarding the video that talks about authorities are trying to determine if it being hit may have been responsible for the seizures this kid was experiencing. My question then was he having seizures before he was being hit-if not then for whatever reason the hitting played some part in him having these seizures, do we really need to dig up Sherlock Holmes in order for him to make that determination?
   
   It strikes me as if someone is hiding and when you approach them they jump out and scare you you then have a heart attack and they claim they are not responsible because all they did was scare you.

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      Brenda Durhamposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      Horrible thing to occur.
      But I'm not sure we know the whole story yet.
      The News said it wasn't clear if the act was bullying or a mutual fight that went way bad....

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   2. 0

      Sarra Garrettposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      This young boy was beaten so badly he was put into a drug induced coma and when it was discovered his brain wasn't working it was decided to let him die in peace.  The person(s) responsible for this beating should be brought to justice and tried as adults.  I'm sorry, you have to make an example out of these young kids who think it's ok to bully as they are allowed to.  My question is where were the adults when this happened?  Bullying is getting out of control and it has to stop!

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         Sarra Garrettposted 11 years agoin reply to this

         It amazes me as to how few people have responded to this post.

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         1. 95

            wildernessposted 11 years agoin reply to this

            First I'd seen of it.
            
            I have to confess, though, that I don't have much to say, either.  I just don't understand what happened.  This doesn't sound like bullying at all; more of a fight between kids. 
            
            And as has been said it does seem like there is a lot more to the story than is seen in the short report.  Hopefully there will more as to what happened.

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               SmartAndFunposted 11 years agoin reply to this

               I agree that there is not much information to go on. I searched around the web a bit and couldn't find any follow-up information. Maybe the investigation has not yet been completed.
               
               My children's school includes in their definition of bullying that bullying is "a pattern of behavior repeated over time." So, if the child who did the punching did not have a history of bothering the boy who died, it might not officially be ruled a bullying incident.
               
               It is reported that there is surveillance video which captured the fight, and that it was a one-on-one fight, that the third boy did not get physically involved. I guess that video has not been released because I couldn't find it to see for myself.
               
               At this point it looks like it could be anybody's guess as to what actually happened. Some people in comments sections of these news stories are saying that O'Neill was "jumped" by two boys and was the victim of a hate crime, while others are saying that the boy who did the punching was sticking up for the child who did not act, and that O'Neill had done his own share of bullying in the past. There's just no way for us to know what really happened, I think, because all these comments are so fueled by emotion. I doubt the boy who threw the punches is going to incriminate himself, and tragically, O'Neill is silenced forever. There is no mention of what O'Neill reported to school officials after the incident in the weeks before he died.
               
               There has been a small flurry of male bullying incidents in my son's fifth-grade class this spring, and if his school is typical, it is the smaller, quieter, more studious "nerdy" boys who are being targeted by some of the larger, louder, more aggressive and athletic boys. I see the photos of O'Neill on the football field and in his baseball uniform and he does not look at all similar to the bullied kids in my son's class. I know you can't tell a book by its cover, but it does make me wonder if maybe this was a one-time fist fight rather than a case of bullying. There is no mention of O'Neill or his parents ever having made any bullying complaints to school administration before this incident, so who knows?
               
               It could be that the boy who threw the punches had been tormenting O'Neill for years, or it could be the other way around. We may never know what really happened.

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                  wildernessposted 11 years agoin reply to this

                  +1 - Exactly.  We don't know anything at this point, and your questions are very well taken.  We can talk about bullying, or even fist fights at school, but as of yet we can't really use this incident to learn from or even as an example to discuss.

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2. 61

   SpanStarposted 11 years ago

   I have to say there are times when our approach to a number of situations is so Cavalier I find it sickening. Is this what higher learning has made us out to be? We see a man on a street corner being beaten savagely but we as educated bystanders have to formulate a hypothesis, we have to ascertain the statistics on this kind of crisis and create a comparative analysis so that we can say "why yes this person was beaten up!" This may come as a complete shock but Sometimes Things Are Actually What They Seem to Be!
   
   Biblical:
   
   Who is the good Samaritan? Is it the one who sees someone injured and crosses the street to avoid getting involved? I preference this to those of us who finds it more important to obtain all the data before acting at all.
   
   From my perspective it appears as though we have become a sanitized society which is to say we take no action until all the facts are brought to bear and that sounds pretty good until you are the one in need of help, at which point you are not looking for someone to dig up Sherlock Holmes or confer with the spirit of Mister Albert Einstein.

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      wildernessposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      It does normally help to understand the problem as much as possible before applying bandaids rather than doing something constructive that might help.
      
      When your car breaks down do you automatically put gas in it in the hopes that that's what's wrong?  Or replace the engine regardless of anything real information or tests?
      
      This may be rooted in bullying, it might be gang related, it might be that one stole from the other, it could have been caused by a hundred different things.  Before you can even start discussing solutions you need to have an idea of the causes.
      
      It is extremely rare that a couple of boys in a fist fight end up with one dead.  Rare enough that I don't even see emergency measures to further prevent fighting are worthwhile to implement, at least unless those measures already in effect at that school are completely inadequate.  Children will fight - about the only way completely stop that is to keep them all at home forever, whereupon they will fight with any siblings.  If the school is doing a reasonable job at preventing fighting, that's good enough at this time.

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3. 61

   SpanStarposted 11 years ago

   Your comments as I see them appears to be limited with respect to how other people live their lives.
   
   If a car has a flat I do not need to take a diagnostic instrument out and examine the underbody to determine the car has a flat.
   
   In my school growing up bullying was is common as breathing and being jumped on even for the first time has put some kids in the hospital. One does not consistently have to be beaten on in order to sustain severe injuries. Perhaps this kind of violence doesn't exist in your area however just because it doesn't exist in your area doesn't mean it doesn't exist. Even in a legitimate school wrestling match a child's arm or leg can be broken.

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      wildernessposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      But this wasn't bullying, just a schoolyard fight between two kids.  We don't even know which one started the fight.
      
      You see the problem.  You will get out of the car, find the problem (flat tire) and fix it.  In this case, all we see is the result (the car sounds funny and swerves) but are not seeing the "flat tire".  We don't know what to "fix".
      
      Given some more information we might determine what action we might take to prevent such things from happening, but until we know more than just that two kids had a fight and one died we don't have any idea what to do about it.  Separate every child from every child will work, sure, but that's no answer!

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         SpanStarposted 11 years agoin reply to this

         I'm afraid I can't agree with your premise regarding bullying. Your comments seem to indicate their needs to be a period of time for bullying to occur. If you have a business whatever that business is and one person, one man comes to you and says "if you want to keep your business safe here is how much you will need to pay me." Is this the first time meeting not bullying?

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4. 88

   Theophanesposted 11 years ago

   I find the US to be very strange and flippant on the issue of bullying. I mean I see these ads all the time trying to bolster the confidence of young victims by telling them bullying is never OK and they should stand up for themselves or tell, or whatever. Schools profess to have a no bullying stance... but no one is looking at the bullies, only the victims.
   
   Bullies, and I mean the ones that are ruthless and keep coming back or get into violent situations, are made by bad parenting! Our society doesn't seem to understand that children who are neglected intellectually and emotionally are often just as mentally damaged as those that receive beatings and abuse and there are a LOT of kids out there who come from homes that are paying --no attention whatsoever-- to them, letting them raise themselves. Of course they grow up to be animals when you let them run feral!
   
   That's my stance - start telling the parents of bullies to WAKE UP and take care of their damn kids so the innocent don't have to suffer.

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5. 83

   psycheskinnerposted 11 years ago

   Even if it was an evil murder of one boy by another, that may not be "bullying".  One of the things needed to solve a problem is to be clear about what the problem is.  I live in Chicago so I know child-on-child homicide is also a huge problem, but it is not bullying and needs different solutions than to a bullying problem.

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