“The poor boy defends himself to the raining blows of his attacker over and over again until he’s forced to take action.” Meh…they both should be suspended, but Casey could have walked away. And those “raining blows” didn’t really seem to hurt him. He is WAY bigger than that other kid. Schools need to nip these conflicts before they even get to this.

Why is Casey being suspended and the other kid is off the hook. Gretchen, students shouldnt be punching other students regardless of if it hurts or not. Casey did the right thing, if he simply walked away the kid will just follow and punch him again. He neutralised the threat and walked away, Casey could of kicked him and did more damage but no, he WALKED AWAY

The little kid had it coming. Casey is a hero. That first punch in the face gave him all the right to kick his ass.

“Evil prevails when good men do nothing” – E. Burke.

Casey is not a hero, his is a good guy FINALLY doing something about the evil little guttershite bully. Would you arrest a cop for doing the same thing? No! Casey did the right thing: he stood his ground, defended to the best of his ability the jabs to his FACE, then neutralized his abuser. Casey did not followup with kicks, punches, or any other aggressive action after the bully was down, so no assault charges can be filed against him.

The school should be fined for negligence for forcing Casey to resort to such tactics. This whole suspension and criminal charges are to cover their own asses.

Realizing that all the people in the video, even the guttershites filming it, are just kids; they are about to enter a much more aggressive world when High School ends. In this situation, the bully and his friends should be held for assault and battery; if they dont know it already its time to wake up and taste the pavement.

I think he was totally justified. He could have knocked him on his ass before that little shit got started, but he didn’t. He should have “walked away” so that this could continue day in and day out until they graduate, I suppose. My father never told me to walk away. He told me to ignore them, sure, but as soon as someone laid a hand on me, I was given full permission to kick their ass. It never had to go any farther than a threat for the bullies at my school. Casey has every right to defend himself, and because he’s so much bigger, he DID show restraint by not punching that little shit-head right in the face. It was unfortunate that that ledge thing was there, because he probably hurt his leg whereas otherwise there would have been nothing more than a knot on the head. Let’s face it, kids who are bullied can’t rely on adults to help them. They have to help themselves, and walking away never solves that particular problem.

WHAT?!?!?!?! You gotta be kidding me with that walk away b.s. Just because it “didn’t seem to hurt him” doesn’t mean it didn’t. The boy was well justified in his actions and even gave the other boy a chance to stop. He didn’t do more damage than was needed, he neutralized the other kid and properly defended himself.

Instead of being punished, he should be commended for standing up and having some dignity. People like Gretchen Powers and her “walk away” strategy are the reason for this bullying epidemic. If more kids were like Casey and could stand up for themselves without the fear of getting in trouble, bullying would be a lot less common.

@ Gretchen – You’re a moron. Didn’t seem to hurt him? Irrelevant. Why don’t I gently “slap” you in the face until you get annoyed and hit me back, and watch you get punished while I walk away? Seem fair? And walking away is not an option. Only means you will get picked on later again and again. He needed to send the msg that bullying is over. “Nip” it in the bud? Go back to your 50′s world where teachers had some sort of authority.

“Meh…they both should be suspended, but Casey could have walked away. And those “raining blows” didn’t really seem to hurt him. He is WAY bigger than that other kid.”

So because he’s bigger, he doesn’t get to fight back when the smaller kid wails away on him?

Self defense is an inherent right. Any society or entity that seeks to invalidate this right is dead wrong.

Take it easy, people. He totally could have walked away. If people were all jumping on him and seriously beating on him it would be totally another story. I am all for self-defense, but in this case, it was overdone. If this treatment of him had been going on for a time before this, it should be reported to the school, parents etc. and dealt with. What if he body slammed the kid and knocked him unconscious or killed him? Then he’d probably have to face juvenile detention or something. It doesn’t do him any good to react like this when he could’ve shoved the kid down and, yes, walked away. The body slam was overdone. Now, I know these are just kids and how was the big kid to know the body slam is overdoing it? Well, that’s the reason you walk away. His life was not in danger, he was not getting seriously wailed on, a much littler kid was bitch slapping him. And by the way, Bear, if you gently slap my face and I walk away, you won’t have access to me to do it again. If you follow me and do it again or hold me down and do it, well, then it’s more justified if I wail on you back. This big kid didn’t even try to remove himself from the situation. And, just because teachers DON’T have control doesn’t mean they SHOULDN’T. You can’t condone a situation where children are physically meting out justice to one another. I’m a little surprised at the comments seems like a whole lot of emotional bandwagoning for a perceived underdog without alot of thought toward the bigger picture.

Walk away? Yeah, because the bullies couldn’t just follow him. Seriously, get a clue. Watch, the video. This looks like a kid who has already tried walking away. The little punk is throwing punches, and Casey takes it. He’s trying to take the non-violent path, he’s trying to defuse the situation. He did everything he could until his only option was self-defense. And to the little punk that got tossed, I hope you enjoy being the biggest doofus on the internet. You’re a classless jerk and the pain and embarrassment that goes along with this whole situation is exactly what you deserve.

Gretchen, you sound privileged and totally out of touch with what this kid is dealing with. What, did you grow up in the strawberry shortcake world of make-believe? The rest of us live in the real world. I went to public school. I’ve seen kids try to run or walk away from situations like this only to get chased down or corned some other day. Walking away doesn’t make a teenage bully leave you alone. It just means that they’ll follow you or come after you the next day. Again, your comments reveal your complete inability to sympathize with what the victims of bullying go through and that you obviously have no clue to the very real emotional and physical pain that bullying can cause.

You talk of the bigger picture Gretchen. What is the bigger picture? You appear to know what it is. How long has Casey been bullied for. How often has he walked away?

When do we not walk away? Should we walk away from Gaddafi?

Should Casey have gotten of scot-free? Of course not. Violence should always be punished. But there needs to be context within the punishment.

However. The real punishment should go towards the school. The biggest issue is the namby-pambys like Gretchen who have taken the power away from the school because of “political correctness”. The kid isn’t an arrogant twit who needs a clip around the ear he’s “Mis-understood” or some such. Excuses are made for bullies to the point where they don’t have to make them up themselves.

There comes a point where Civil Liberties turn into Criminal Liberties. I think you walk a little close to that line Gretchen.

The thing we don’t see is all the other days that Casey had to put up with the name calling and whatever else he had put up with that led up to this event .Like many small tormentors the “bully” probably thought his small size protected him from the bigger boy’s retaliation. Pacifism is a parasitic philosophy, while it works in a bigger political field ,it is useless on the smaller person to person scope.And walking away works on a one time problem,not when you live with the bully for 1/3 of your day.At some point a person has to choose to take a stand or resign themselves to being the bullies whipping boy. Did Casey need to slam the bully? Maybe not.But I am not going to armchair his choice of violent response. I do want to point out he didn’t jump on the kid and keep hitting him like many kids in my day would have.He was struck a number of times and responded with the level of violence it took to get his tormentor to stop.

Just walk away? Didn’t England do that when Hitler first started bullying Europe? Bullies only survive as long as people refuse to stand up to them.

The little guy was asking for it but the big guy used excessive force. He threw him down on cement. Part of him lands on a cement bench. Depending on how the little kid landed, he could have been killed, paralyzed or just badly injured whereas the big guy was barely getting injured at all. Also we don’t know everything about this case. The big guy looks innocent. The story about him being constantly harassed sounds like bullying, but he doesn’t look like the type to put up with much. How do we know if the stories are true? I think we have to leave this to the school and the police to settle. Had he just punched the kid or pushed him away it would be no big deal but this kind of body slam really looks like it has deadly potential and it shouldn’t be encouraged.

@Gretchen

What was your Adolescent schooling environment? and where?

As someone who endured many years of physical and psychological abuse from bullying i can relate to the situation that arose, however i can also see different perspectives.

Everyone has the right to defend themselves, in this situation he was obviously instigated by a smaller child, was it right to slam him like that? Probably not, I think he is within his rights to do so, but personally i think that his actions were potentially lethal and somewhat excessive. (On a related note, It’s hard when you finally retaliate – I know for me when i finally faced confrontation the mix of not knowing my own strength and the rage i felt were incredible. I restrained myself from then on – because the rage caused could very well have led to serious ramifications)

It’s hard to judge what is “excessive force” – In this circumstance it appears to be brutal but just – But out own experiences have formed our views, we cannot judge this without intimate knowledge of both boys and without seeing what kind of violent behaviors they participate in.

I always love seeing a bully put in their place, but i also agree, violence can never really solve the underlying problems.

I have a serious problem with your argument. I’ll agree on principal “The power of the mind is stronger than the power of a child’s fists.” and in principle i share the view that “violence doesn’t solve anything”. The unfortunate truth of the matter is sometimes it does.

Like i said i endured bullying and i tried to deal with it the way my mother told me , “just ignore them”. I did …. what happened? they continued stepping up both the violence and the emotional abuse. I asked my mum again “Tell your teachers whats happening” I did …. what happened? Teacher talks to them attempts to tell them off ….. bullying persisted, tried the principle … what happened ? nothing. Sometimes walking away doesn’t work, and its important that people acknowledge that. ( It’s important that i share that my adversity was experiences because i was smart – and these experiences traveled with me to 7/9 of the schools i attended in varying states)

In this circumstance no one can really judge the merits and flaws in what happened because this is only a tiny glimpse of their lives, but i have a serious problem with people who wholeheartedly stand by subjective opinions, this extends to people who think he was in the right too. Different people experience different things and its important for people to recognize this. There can be very severe adverse affects to bullying – often children who take the “walk away” approach never get closure and take the feelings of hatred and despair with them. This can lead to suicides and shootouts , these are extreme examples but they are more common than they should be.

If anything I’d hope that you or anyone else read this and can at least see that situations like these are not black and white, but shades of Grey. I know personally, i can recognize what bullying has done to me and the effects can be quite significant.

You’ll have to excuse my schizophrenic writing style – I’ve been up a long time.

I just disagree. Don’t agree with me, but accept that not everyone agrees with you (the collective you) and don’t get violent about it. People saying comments like the little shit got what he deserved, or the big kid should’ve beat him up more, or they’d pay money to see a beat down, I don’t find those well-articulated. No, they sound like immature teenagers to me. I am all for self defense, as needed. Walking away is always an option is all I am saying. That said, the adults in this situation and many described in the comments=huge FAIL.

“What if Casey had a glass jaw…”

I’m supposed to have an intelligent discussion with this?

Peace. Out.

Gretchen probably WAS the bully at her school.

oh and here is the medical study conducted on “glass jaw” http://digitalcommons.wayne.edu/dissertations/AAI3152346/
here is a brief abstract taken from the study
This multi-phase project was the first to explore the biomechanical response of the temporomandibular joint (TMJ) from a straight punch in boxing. During the first phase, a technique was developed that combined the head impact response from a biofidelic anthropometric test device (ATD) with the calculated punch force from an Olympic class boxer throwing straight punches. The results derived from the ATD were used to determine the risk of head injury in terms of HIC, linear and angular acceleration from a straight punch to the chin. The study suggests that the risk of severe head injury, predicted by HIC, was less than two percent from a straight punch to the chin. The average reported HIC in the study was also well below the proposed NFL concussion threshold of 250. In the study, high angular accelerations were calculated suggesting that a potential injury mechanism in boxing may be angular acceleration of the head. In the second phase, the forces applied by the boxers to the ATD headform mandible region were used as design parameters for the development of a method to characterizing the overall motion and strains within the TMJ region of a cadaver model. In the final phase of the study, three different types of mouthguards were analyzed using the cadaver model to determine how their use reduces the strains in the TMJ. The results indicate the strains in the mandible from a chin point impact were reduced with use of a mouthguard but that reduction did not translate to a decrease in strains measured within the base of the skull. The minimal change in strain measured at the base of the skull may have been due to the mouthguard engaging the maxilla; creating a second path for applied load to enter this region. Due to the small sample size and biomechanical variability within specimens’, additional research is required to confirm this observation. This study adds to the understanding of the severity of a chin point impact and the associated biomechanical response of the mandible under a variety of conditions. Future studies in this area should explore minimizing the rotation of the mandible during the impact. (Abstract shortened by UMI.)
Recommended Citation

Timothy J Walilko, “Biomechanical response of the temporomandibular joint from impacts in boxing” (January 1, 2004). ETD Collection for Wayne State University. Paper AAI3152346.
http://digitalcommons.wayne.edu/dissertations/AAI3152346

But then I guess it’s hard to have an” Intelligent Discussion “with someone who keeps bringing facts into the argument.

Most of you sound just ridiclous. Both boys should be suspended (or whatever the punsihment for fighting in school is). None of you all know any of the history of this particular pair. You’re all just projecting your own middle school experiences on to the situation. Someone who reacts violently enough that he could have killed someone is no “hero” in my book. The school and parents should have intervened long before this and should have been protecting both kids.

I like how you still haven’t responded to anyone’s points.

If Casey has been systematically bullied, I don’t think he feels anything like a hero. I think he’s sitting at home, dealing with his suspension, worrying about further repercussions and wishing fervently that the whole thing could just go away. Now, not only does he have to deal with what’s going on in his own life, he has to deal with the world of the internet and the “hero worship” of people who have never met him, don’t know him, and don’t know anything about him or his story save for a few minutes of what was probably one of the worst days of his life.

Look, Todd, first, I challenge you to go back and find where I resorted to name calling. Second, get over it. I have my opinion. I don’t think kids should hit each other. I understand you have your viewpoint, and I disagree with it. I am not required to respond to every single random point an angry mob of posters make on a website to be entitled to express my opinion. I am looking at this through the eyes of a logical outsider, you and others are looking at this through people with some kind of personal vendetta against something that seems quite amorphous. This will be my last post on this topic.

If this ends up in a court of law the video will say it all. The bully got what he deserved and a lesson. I’m the second oldest of six brothers so we didn’t get bullied much. I did take care of a situation or two though. No bullying after that.
A bullying incident at a local high school was handled thusly last week: A 16 year old girl sucker-punched a 15 year-old girl for no other reason than the 15 year-old used to be good friends with her but doesn’t hang with her anymore because she doesn’t like some of her new friends and the things they seem to be into now. They girls ended up rolling down a flight of stairs with the 16year-old ending up on top punching away. The 15 year old turned the tables and broke the 16 year-old girls nose with one punch. The 16 year old was expelled and will be facing criminal charges while the 15 year old was rightfully defending herself.

“Sounds like Babble is being visited by a bunch of teenage boys…”

Not to mention sanctimonious twits. . .

“Walking away, when you can, *is* a form of self defense. Also, if one doesn’t react to a taunt (and little bitch punches qualify as a taunt) the taunt is most certainly defused. The power of the mind is stronger than the power of a child’s fists.”

Gretchen, as someone who was bullied relentlessly when she was a girl, I can assure you that ignoring it and walking away doesn’t do squat–they see it as weakness and up the ante. Going to adults does nothing either–you’re told to suck it up, that you have to learn to deal with it (or to just ignore it and they’ll stop–which, as I and others have pointed out, they won’t), or they’ll “talk” to the bullies who’ll act sorry and then gang up on you and administer a group beat-down. I’ve walked in Casey’s shoes, you obviously haven’t. The fact that that snotty little twerp who full on punched him in the face didn’t get suspended for assault is sickening.

And the fact that you have no compassion for this bullied kid is quite telling. People like YOU are part of the problem.

I to have a son who has been bullied and walked away many times only to find the one bullying him gain a sense of accomplishment or coolness among his peers. I am siding with Casey on this one. Why does size matter here? Why does age matter here? The younger of the two obviously chose to hurt someone and acted as if he were going further with his violence. Casey defended himself just as we all have a right to. He defended himself then walked away. Why should anyone have to be treated the way Casey has been treated. The little guy needs a good butt whoopin. Casey turned the other cheek and Little Guy continued. As parents, what would you have wanted of your child? As children, what would you have done? Seriously, why are our rights being contradicted here? Casey, if you were my son, I would be very proud of you. You aren’t a criminal, but you are a human being who did not deserve to be treated like the little guy treated you. I give credit to your parents for raising a fine young man. You turned the other cheek and the Little guy continued. You stopped when you had your way out. I applaud you. You were not placed on this earth to be anyones punching bag. You are a precious child and deserve to be respected. As for you, Little guy, if you were my son, I would whip your butt till you couldn’t sit down. You are just as important as Casey so why would you treat him like you did? I do not think anyone would want to be treated like you treated Casey. Trying to show off like you did to your friends doesn’t make you bigger. It makes you a very ugly person. When you are grown, what you tried to prove will mean nothing. Are your friends going to take punishment with you? NOT. If I were you, I would spank myself for being so hateful. You will come across someone without a heart. Casey has a big heart here. He could have really hurt you, instead, he defended himself then walked away. Your lucky this time. Next time someone could take your life out of sheer anger. You just don’t go around being so ugly like that little boy. I hope your Parents gave you a good, legal butt whoopin.

What made that little punk think he could just go up to another human being and start punching him for no reason? I’m glad he got body slammed to the ground, he needed it!

Gretchen, I endured YEARS of these kind of attacks. “Walked away” and “told a teacher” every time.

What did it get me? The same crap Casey is getting in this video. His classmates (PLURAL) have told the news reporters that the “you talking shit” comment from the little bully is because CASEY REPORTED THE BULLYING TO THE TEACHERS – and the only thing the namby-pamby, useless fucking teachers did was pull the boy aside and say “we hear you were bullying and you should stop it or we’ll tell you to stop again.”

What finally ended it? When I gave up and grabbed one of the fucking assailants who was trying the same shit this little shit did, and slammed him facefirst into a concrete wall. Sure, his four buddies beat me up after that (these fucking bullies always travel in PACKS, didn’t you see the little shit’s 3 friends standing around, including the one who steps up almost to attack Casey before the girl tells him he needs to back off… and then follows Casey down the hallway anyways). But they didn’t come after me after that day because they knew even if they managed to beat me up 5 on 1, one or two of them was going to wind up with a broken arm or a broken nose.

Whiny fucking morons like you don’t solve anything, “Gretchen.” Bullies only understand one thing, and you have to talk to them in their own language to get any results. “Talking to” or trying to get a bully to “understand” their victims is just telling the bully that you’re a fucking target.

Being kind is often mistaken for weakness, and over time, people imagine that I would not have the capacity to retaliate in a far worse manner, so, I simply sent a message. I do not play on words, or double meanings, etc.

I agree with the response of the defender here. Totally justified. He better not get any punishment at all, and they better be all over that bully. Gretchen, you watched the video. That bully started with as hard a punch as he could, AND THE VICTIM DID NOT RETALIATE, didn’t even defend himself on the first one. On the second hard hit, the victim swatted the arm away, but still didn’t escalate. The bully was taking pot shots at him as though he was a punching bag until he defended. You understand: He continued to hit UNTIL HE WAS INJURED.

Now, the defender probably didn’t try to hurt the bully. He obviously doesn’t even know how to fight (I practice the martial arts, so I know what a fighter looks like). They clinched, he found himself in a position where his arms were around the bully so he just picked him up and threw him down. Probably the only “move” he could think of at the time. It was only accidental that the bully’s leg was hurt. The defender didn’t target the leg in any way.

In a fight, I would really like to see how Gretchen keeps her cool, against a person who is trying hard to hurt her, but, say, unluckily missed on the first hit. Or hit her, but didn’t knock her out so she was still standing. It’s not reasonable to just take those, or turn your back to the guy so he can throw a rock at your head or whatever. At least, I think it would be an unsafe decision to walk or run away, especially if you didn’t know that you could get away.

Violence is dangerous. Maybe the bully had a rock, or would have kicked in the balls, or would have tried to scratch his eyes. Clearly, it going towards that because the bully was trying as best he could to hurt him. Eventually he would have found a way. I just worry that the bully will be embarrassed, and come back with a weapon or something.

Perfecting Parenthood