To Karen Klein’s surprise, cards, flowers and hundreds of Facebook friend requests started popping up early Wednesday.
“I can’t fathom it, it’s like this isn’t me, this isn’t what I do. I just like to keep a low profile.”
The 10-minute video of at least four Greece middle school students verbally attacking, poking, and taunting the 68-year-old bus attendant on a ride home has gone viral, keeping a low profile can no longer be an option.
“We’re all standing here because of social media. It’s 2012 the last somebody told me there’s a 100,000 hits on the video and the district’s received e-mails from as far away as Australia,” said Captain Steve Chatterton, Greece Police Department.
“I have to reiterate, we have to focus on facts,” he said.
What more facts do you need? We are all standing here because of some 7th and 8th grade jerks, who have no respect for their elders. Social media was used to expose these kids and hopefully teach them a lesson in life.
The Greece Police Department is assisting the district in identifying the 7th and 8th grade students involved in the harassment. The investigation is ongoing, but the assistant superintendent said the students involved will face strong disciplinary action.
“We do not tolerate harassment of staff or students,” said Deb Hoeft, assistant superintendent.
Karen hasn’t had time to get on the computer and see how the world is reacting to this video. Now that she’s reviewed it with police, she said she really didn’t hear all of the hurtful things the kids had said.
“It just was all nasty,” she said. “My daughter heard something that wasn’t good, it was about something about me being so fat and ugly, and your kids probably should commit suicide. I don’t think they knew that my son had.”
During the incident, Karen said she felt like her hands were tied.
“I wanted to punch him is what I wanted to do, so that’s why I stayed laid back and just tried to ignore it, because I really wanted to hurt them, you know, and you can’t do that, nope.”
The longtime school bus driver turned attendant said she hopes this whole incident teaches kids a lesson.
And to the students who were actually involved…
“I hope you never do it again to anybody else before the end of the week.”
I have to send my condolences to Karen for the passing of her son. I am ashamed that this took place in MY city, I feel embarrassed for the parents of those children. Hopefully they did not teach their children any of these actions. I have to say I am a little happy that these were Caucasian kids who attend a suburb school. Sorry for my honesty but if these were black kids it would revolve around better parenting and the music these kids listen too. Black kids are taught from young to respect your elders no matter if they are family members or not. I guess it all comes from the saying “it takes a village to raise a kid”. Caucasian kids are usually depicted as talking back to their parents and disrespecting any adult who annoys them. From Macaulay Culkin trying to divorce his parents to watching Teen moms curse out their own mothers every episode, we see it everywhere. They are consistently showing the disrespect to adults. I for one have to say I’m happy this happened and was exposed to the world. Hopefully it will bring more awareness to the overall problem.