OK, we have now bested the lunacy of sexting charges

@aidan,

why this girl could not cope has nothing to do with for instance charging two of her former boyfriends with statutory rape. Once we in America stopped charging for the crimes committed, and rather started to use the lawbook to go after people we want to go after, we were fucked. We have corrupted the law, it is no longer the reasonable rational pursuit of justice.

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@OmSigDAVID,

Quote:

The police shoud have been summoned to attend to all violence
and threats thereof.

Media that I have seen only say that she was called a Irish slut, and someone threw a can of soda or at least a soda can at her. Lot's of claims of a organized taunting effort with physical abuse, claims that this abuse was abnormal for this setting, but that remains to be seen. We hopefully have learned not to trust American prosecutors to fairly evaluate the evidence.

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@hawkeye10,

Quote:

As I said. We also need to figure out why the teen suicide rate is so high in general, as well as why the victims of bullying decide to off themselves. we had plenty of bullying when I was in school, and I knew some of the victims rather well, however none of them took the hostility so seriously that they considered ending their life, so far as I know. what has changed I think is that so many of these kids are not grounded anywhere today. In my day even the worst victims had friends and family that they thought they could count on.

The bulk of my response was in response to this post by you- and ebrownp's response (which I quoted to show agreement) back to you.

I wasn't addressing the statutory rape charge. I was addressing the bullying.
And I find you questioning why this girl couldn't deal with extended and cruel harrassment instead of questioning why our society is producing children who find engaging in this harrassment entertaining and a viable activity in and out of school, in person, by computer, by mobile phone - to be shifting the blame and unproductive.

Yes, I agree, if the girl had consensual sex with those guys - the statutory rape charge, though maybe viable - is beside the matter.

The question I think is more interesting is why so many kids today find this sort of thing acceptable and even 'fun' to do.
When I was growing up there were one or two bullies in a class - now it seems like EVERYONE wants to get in on it.

And I disagree with you - I see 'cruelty' and 'bullying' today that is more intense and orchestrated than I'd ever seen when I was growing up.

It's become like a tormenting game these people play.

But I'm not surprised when I see how some of the parents - and I'm talking about your really middle class and wonderful parents (on the outside) treat other people and talk about their friends and neighbors in front of their kids.

If you were gonna put the kids of every mean set of parents who teach their children how to disdain others through their words and actions in foster care - I'd say that'd have to happen in about 6 out of 10 homes.

People are just meaner these days- it's become more acceptable to call names, to make judgments, to deride others without mercy - and I'm talking about solely on the basis of whether they like you or not.

(I'm not addressing political correctness and how that has influenced the language and acceptance of different racial groups, etc.- that has very little to do with kindness).

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@aidan,

right now we have a full study by the Da, another by the school, several reporters on the case, lots of claims by the DA about how horrible these 9 kids are, and almost no examples of what the substance of this alleged horribleness was. This is very suspect, three months of organized felony abuse and all we have for evidence so far is name calling and 1 thrown can?? What ever else they did the school employees did not feel the need to take any action. You will notice that the DA says that the bulk of the abuse took place at school, this is not primarily a cyber-bullying case.

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@hawkeye10,

I'm starting to get the message that you don't want to talk about your post that I am interested in about why teenagers don't have the tools to deal with this sort of bullying. Laughing

If you only want to talk about this specific case - I guess there isn't anything else to talk about until we get all the facts of the case out in the open.

The last thing I'll say is this - you could not PAY me enough money to get me to change generational places with kids today, and I say this as someone who was a kid, has kids and works with kids. I am very happy that I grew up when I did. I do think it was a gentler and kinder time.

Maybe this girl would have done better back in my time.

Instead of asking why she killed herself - maybe we should ask why anyone would want to push her to the point that she felt so lonely, isolated, desperate and helpless that she did?And why there were nine kids involved in this - in concert- it seems? Because that is different from the old days when you had 'the (single) classroom bully.

It's despicable. And it is very different from the days when you had the bully whose purpose was to try to steal your lunch money. The only purpose here seem to be the willful destruction of a person, with malice aforethought.

That's sick. If my child were ever involved in something like this - as I said - prison for that child would be the least of my worries.

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@aidan,

The perceived problem was that this Irish girl came into the school and with-in weeks gets the football star for a boyfriend. This would have been a problem even in our day. The response was to try to make life so bad for her that she would go to a different school. We don't know what these kids did to her, so I cant say if it would have happened in my day. Switching schools was rare back then, so I think getting her out wouldn't have been the game plan back then.

The Elephant in the room is that this was a girl and she was very good looking. It is certainly the majority of the problem that lead to what ever abuse took place. My question is is this what motivated this DA to throw the book at these kids? Is this a case where a very good looking girl is dead and so someone has to pay, even if creative prosecuting is required to achieve the desired end result?

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@hawkeye10,

Well, it'd be interesting to know if all the people doing the bullying of this girl were themselves girls. That's really the only way that scenario makes sense. Unless you had some weak-assed boyfriends of the less good looking mean girls going along with the whole plan to stay on the good side of the majority of the girls by sacrificing the pretty girl.

But again, this leads me to ask why these girls had such low self-esteem that they couldn't handle someone more attractive in their midst? Because that is and always will be a fact of life for them.

I don't know about you, but when I was growing up there was always a 'prettiest', 'smartest' 'most athletic'....we didn't hound those people into oblivion. We called them the homecoming king and queen.

Part of the reason the DA may be looking at this case a little more intently is because it is an 'international' incident.
Think about how it looks that this kid from another country comes to an American school and gets hounded (and maybe for being 'pretty' no less) until she finally kills herself.

But this did make me think about H2O man's thread on the fall of the concept of the individual. People seem to have to run in packs now moreso than before.
Before someone could be a bully all on his or her own - now they feel more comfortable functioning in packs- interesting.

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Quote:

It was an especially tragic ending for the Prince family. Anne O'Brien Prince and Jeremy Prince had moved from County Clare to Massachusetts with their five kids last year. In Phoebe's death notice, they said they moved in part so "Phoebe could experience America.''

http://www.truecrimereport.com/2010/01/phoebe_prince_15_commits_suici.php

a piece of the puzzle for sure, her not seeking help at school from the adults for sure, maybe a boat load of guilt because her parents did this for her and she hated it, maybe it ties into her originally thinking it was just fine for a new freshman girl to date a senior football star who by the way was still kinda sorta still with another girl. Did she have stars in her eyes about America? Did she mistake America for the MTV fantasy of openminedness and diversity? We dont know, but there is reason to think that her not being able to cope was not all about the evil done to her.

Another thing, reports are that the dad was actually still in Ireland, he had not seen his girl in months. Is this a broken family here, was there a lot of stuff going on at home that was stressing this kid out?

Quote:

Certainly Phoebe had other concerns. Always close to her father, Jeremy, a gardener, she was having a difficult time adjusting to life without him"accounts vary as to why her parents were no longer living together"after moving to the rented top floor of a two-story house in South Hadley. "She would talk about how much she missed her dad," Nick says; one friend described her as upset over the separation. Says a family friend in Ireland: "She was having ups and downs, but nothing to the extreme."

http://www.people.com/people/archive/article/0,,20350702,00.html

Are we ruining 9 lives because an Irish kid from a bad family situation could not deal with her new American High School culture?

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@aidan,

Quote:

Well, it'd be interesting to know if all the people doing the bullying of this girl were themselves girls.

You obviously have not read the originakl artical.

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@dadpad,

Quote:

You obviously have not read the originakl artical

Maybe the fact that 2 out of nine, in fact the two with the heaviest charges, are boys confused aiden? I mean all the talk is about a mean girls club, but then why do the boys get the worst of it then?

Quote:

Sean Mulveyhill, 17, of South Hadley. Charged with statutory rape, violation of civil rights with bodily injury resulting, criminal harassment and disturbance of a school assembly. A woman who answered the phone at a listing for a Mulveyhill family refused to identify herself, and said "You don't know the full story."

Kayla Narey, 17, of South Hadley. Charged with violation of civil rights with bodily injury resulting, criminal harassment and disturbance of a school assembly. A message left at a number listed to a Narey family was not immediately returned; another line was out of service.

Austin Renaud, 18, of Springfield. Charged with statutory rape. A telephone number could not immediately be found.

Ashley Longe, 16, of South Hadley. Charged as a youthful offender with violation of civil rights with bodily injury resulting. A telephone number could not immediately be found.

Sharon Chanon Velazquez, 16, of South Hadley. Charged as a youthful offender with violation of civil rights with bodily injury resulting. There was no telephone listing.

Flannery Mullins, 16, of South Hadley. Charged as a youthful offender with violation of civil rights with bodily injury resulting, stalking. A message left at a Mullins home was not immediately returned.

Three 16-year-old South Hadley girls, whose names were not release, face delinquency charges of violation of civil rights with bodily injury resulting, criminal harassment, and disturbance of a school assembly, criminal harassment, and assault by means of a dangerous weapon.

http://www.myfoxboston.com/dpp/news/local/phoebe-prince-bullying-suicide-list-of-suspects-charges-25-apx-20100329

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Quote:

According to a great column by Kevin Cullen in the Boston Globe, a student at South Hadley told a TV reporter that bullying was a common problem at South Hadley High. After the TV crew left, one of the popular girls came up and punched the student in the head for talking on camera.

Quote:

Parents recounted numerous incidents of kids being hounded and harassed, sometimes over multiple-year periods. One man told of how his son was punched in the stomach for befriending another bullied kid. A mom spoke of how her son was punched and had his face written on with magic marker

Quote:

Father Larry Bay said his daughter was bullied last year, but the school did nothing to stop it.

Quote:

Even after her death, the popular girls wouldn't let up. They were like some vicious little caricatures of evil from a Lifetime movie.
Even after her death, the shitty little girls left disparaging messages on a Facebook page created in her memory.

interesting artical that is relevent
http://www.boston.com/community/moms/articles/2010/03/09/mean_girl_behavior_begins_at_early_ages/

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@boomerang,

What about an 18 or 19 year old?
While still technically teenagers, they ARE adults (for legal purposes).

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Up to about 1/2 way on page two, Im sort of shocked..but not really... that I agree with Hawkeye.

I am wondering if people are missing what he is saying. Or at least what I perceive he is saying.

It seems to me his response is quite simple. A good piece of stopping bullying is to begin teaching our kids what to DO about it. Teaching them, ( with his example) that it is NOT mandatory for you to get up when the prom queen demands it. That will remove the bully's power. Not standing there and being quiet when someone says something that hurts you. Being ok with themselves, their surroundings , their decisions and their own person to be able to speak up, yell back, get attention when needed and learn confidence in a way that allows them to really look DOWN on that kind of activity because they ARE above it, and it IS ridiculous, unnecessary childish behavior that deserves punishment.

What is wrong with ALSO adapting that kind of thought process for every parent?

Boomerang is spot on with the statement

Quote:

Now bullying goes on and on and on via the internet. It's incredibly public. Once a kid is targeted it steamrolls

It was not even 10 years ago, cameras in phones ( Just for an example!) were non existent. Now people can shove their camera under the stall, snap a photo and text it to an entire school. The TYPE of bullying that can go on now has never before been seen. Internet does allow it to go on at allll hours, and can rope in even strangers in the taunting. This is unparalleled to anything anyone has ever seen before. And it is harder to control. No one can preview the context of every text message . No one can supervise posts on facebook, or myspace or any other networking site kids use. The very ability to spread rumors, possible phone photos, nasty texts, judgment etc.. is so far beyond what anyone has ever experienced before I DO BELIEVE that the laws should be adjusted to accommodate technology.

But again, going back to my original idea........ why is it shot down, the very suggestion that parents can help with bullying by teaching their children what to do with it, how to handle it and teaching them to be more confident in themselves so that they are able to combat it and put it to a stop? We readily do that and accept that practice when it comes to rape. We trot our little girls to karate classes, judo classes and an army of other self defense classes with that very thought in mind " She can learn to defend herself" We have specific teachers and speakers who come TO schools to teach things like stranger danger , how to yell, what to say, techniques of HOW and WHERE to run, a generalization of what to look for..
Why can we not start doing this for bullying?

Yes, I know that this idea does not jump straight from the details of this particular case, and to a certain extent it seems that it may not have helped MUCH considering that it was stated twice in the article that adults were not reacting as they should, but why should the particulars of ONE case make people shoot down that idea?

I also agree that the children who DO this kind of bullying should not only get serious repercussions, but those parents NEED TO BE approached just the same. Our kids ARE a reflection of us to enough of an extent that they should be held accountable for their extreme actions such as this one.

No. not every single stinking thing our kids do is all about us.. no no no.

But the children who are comfortable with slinging insults, looking down at other kids, taunting, full of hate and anger.. are probably coming from a home just like that. They are a mirror, not a carbon copy. So yeah, grab those parents too. Grab those parents who belt the hell out of their kids, that insult their children, be little them, be rude to them... Find them.
Take those kids who can be that way to others with out blinking an eye because that is what they were taught some how..and go after those parents. Yes. With a few home evaluations it should be clear the appropriate action to take with in the home as well.
No, im not saying charge the parents with dozens of felonies, remove the kids and other wise shatter them all... but that kind of anger , hatred and disgust , the kind that fuels the stronger bullying kids, comes from some where. Home is more than likely the main source. Tackle it.

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@dadpad,

I did read the original article. I figured the boys were accused of statutory rape because they had sex with the girl and that's what they could charge these boys with - having sex with an underage girl.

That does NOT automatically mean they were part of the bullying- sounds like they might have actually liked her.

I'm not confused at all. I see this stuff happening every day and it sure isn't only by kids who are being beaten and insulted by their parents - many times it's by kids who have been brought up to believe that NOBODY is as good as they are - and they have to make sure everyone knows that.

And it doesn't even have to be overt. Bullying can be the last refuge of someone who feels absolutely powerless inside. And it can take very passive forms.

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@aidan,

Shewolf said:

Quote:

why is it shot down, the very suggestion that parents can help with bullying by teaching their children what to do with it, how to handle it and teaching them to be more confident in themselves so that they are able to combat it and put it to a stop?

I didn't shoot it down. I think it is important to teach your children how to deal with any social situation that might arise - that's a parent's job.

But if a child is not doing anything wrong, and someone is bullying that child and that child ends up despondent and dead - my first question wouldn't be - 'Why couldn't that child deal with that?'

My first question would be, 'What is wrong with those kids that they feel it's alright for them to gang up on this other child?'

And you can try to equip your child to deal with bullying by saying, 'Don't feed into it - just ignore it - tell your teacher- don't believe the mean things they say- keep holding your head up - you're a good person, you're none of the things they say you are...' but if a group of NINE people are coming at your kid every single day bombarding and pelting that child with insults and harrassment ...that you don't see to even know the extent of the cruelty that child has to wake up to everyday, dragging herself out of bed to go and try to face all on her own...that's like giving your child a pen knife to defend herself against someone with a shotgun.

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This case isn't about the popular kids being mean to the less popular, this is a case of gang violence.

Joe(stop blaming the victim of their hate)Nation

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@aidan,

actually that is NOT my first question.
I dont agree at all saying ' why wasnt she able to handle it"

What I am saying is why dont we have more in place to teach kids how to deal with this, how to report this and why isnt it more wide spread the idea of bullying? We have people who drill stranger danger into kids as young as 5.
With the ability TO bully being this strong ( technology) why are we not stepping up awareness and rules/ laws against it?

My first question when I read this was Why was it allowed to go on so long?
My first finger was pointed at the school, the teachers and the adults. Not the child for not standing up to them as if that would have made any difference .
Dont twist my words.

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@shewolfnm,

I was referring to Hawkeye's post that I quoted beforehand. I didn't think this was your first question. I was just explaining what my first question would have been.

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@aidan,

ohhhh ok.
It makes sense now. I was wondering where that came from Laughing

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@shewolfnm,

Quote:

What I am saying is why dont we have more in place to teach kids how to deal with this, how to report this and why isnt it more wide spread the idea of bullying? We have people who drill stranger danger into kids as young as 5.
With the ability TO bully being this strong ( technology) why are we not stepping up awareness and rules/ laws against it?

There are bullying hotlines in place where children can now report bullying immediately. That's one step in the right direction.

Quote:

My first question when I read this was Why was it allowed to go on so long?
My first finger was pointed at the school, the teachers and the adults. Not the child for not standing up to them as if that would have made any difference .

All I can tell you is what I've seen happen. Many times the child is embarrassed that this is happening to them. They try to act like it isn't at first. They try all the strategies they've been taught to make it go away. But as I said, there are some people who are determined to make this an ongoing and everyday occurrence in the child's life.

My own daughter used to wear hearing aids. She still should. She won't anymore. Because she was taunted daily about her hearing aids by a boy in her class in eighth grade. I had no idea. The teacher had no idea. When she finally told me two years later I was astounded. I asked her why she hadn't told anyone. She said she was embarrassed that it was happening. It seems easier to her to go to school and struggle to hear than to stand up to these bullies and have herself labeled as a tattle-tale....then what would she have to deal with - not only does she have a hearing loss but she's also a little whining tattle tale baby.

Adolescence is rough enough without having people around you determined to drag you down to build themselves up. A lot of teens don't react or act logically at all - but much less when they're being tormented everyday.

And yeah - any adult who knew about this and looked the other way should pay for it for the rest of his or her life. Hopefully they'll have that sort of conscience instead of the one that says, 'Oh well, it's probably just that her dad was away from the family and her parents didn't teach her how to deal with bullies.'

Some people are strong. Some people are fragile. Bullies learn really quickly who they can manipulate.

Quote:

Dont twist my words

I didn't - but apologies for any misunderstanding.

1 Reply

OK, we have now bested the lunacy of sexting charges

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