School Bullying Council

The legend of Casey the Punisher (aka Casey Heynes) took a dramatic — and some would say disturbing — turn on Wednesday, as a notorious hackers group hijacked the 16-year-old’s school web site in protest of his suspension. The hacktivist group “Anonymous” has garnered notoriety for recent attacks on various company web sites in support Julian Assange and Wikileaks. Now, apparently, they’ve turned their guns on Chifley College, Dunheved Campus at North St Marys, the Australian school which suspended Casey Heynes for his role in the infamous bullying incident. Video of the skirmish has gone viral, despite it being banned by YouTube.

Noting that Casey was actually the victim of a bully, but received a four-day suspension anyway for fighting back, Anonymous declared the launch of “Operation Fat Hero,” in which the school’s web site was taken down and further cyber disobedience was solicited from readers. Excerpt from the attack manifesto:

We have had enough of this bigotry. They failed at providing a violence-free environment for their students, and when Zangief Kid (Casey) took things in his own hands they b****slapped him for defending himself.

Anonymous then advocated people flood the school with emails to “let them feel your wrath.”

Full screen cap below:

How long before images of Casey with a Che Guevara beret begin popping up? Updates, of course, to follow.

The moral of the story here is that you shouldn’t suspend a bullied kid unless you’re prepared to feel the wrath of the hacker community. Because most computer nerds were probably bullied when they were in school, they take this very personally.

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Zangief Kid’ Owns a Playground Bully and Gets Suspended, Anonymous Backs Him Up [URLesque]

http://offthebench.nbcsports.com/2011/03/17/hacktivist-group-takes-down-school-web-site-of-bullied-australian-kid/

Calgary Counselling Centre, an organization dedicated to ending violence in the community, has issued a plea: help stop bullying before kids resort to violence. The Centre was responding to a video that has become an internet sensation. It shows an alleged bullying victim in Australia, Casey Heynes, fighting back against his tormentor. Heynes body-slams the younger, and smaller boy, into the ground.

The video, originally posted on YouTube, now has a Facebook fan page with hundreds of comments congratulating Heynes for fighting back against his aggressor.

But Kim Busch of the Calgary Couselling Centre says the younger boy could have killed if he had landed on his head. “Celebrating this video is misguided – this violent act should never have happened,” says Busch. “Early interventions could have prevented this unfortunate incident from taking place.”

Busch says statistics show bullying occurs in school playgrounds every seven minutes and once every 25 minutes in class.

“We must bring more awareness to this issue in order to prevent it. Bullying can be stopped if our community steps up and says ‘no more’.”

YouTube has since taken down the video but it is now available on other websites.

http://www.globaltvbc.com/Bullying+victim+hero+says+Calgary+group/4451943/story.html

Via Sportsgrid, how long does it take these days for a video to go viral, inspire Facebook tribute sites, and draw major media attention?

Twenty-four hours, my friends.

The school involved, Chifley College’s Dunheved Campus at St Marys North, has suspended both students and called police after footage of the fight, which took place on school grounds about 10.30am yesterday, was aired on a television station…

It is understood the Year 10 student is a victim of repeated bullying at Chifley College’s Dunheved Campus, a middle school in a disadvantaged part of western Sydney.

But police and bullying experts are concerned by the video’s publication on Facebook and the overwhelmingly positive reaction to the older boy’s retaliation against his attacker.

“We don’t believe that violence is ever the answer,” Mr Dalgleish says.

I believe the part about “repeated bullying.” Not only is there any obvious size difference between them, there’s an age difference too: The bully is just 12 and the bullied kid is … 16. (Really?) I’ve never seen a seventh-grader pick a fight with a high school junior, let alone one much bigger him, which means our bully here is either under severe delusions about his own alpha male-dom or the bullied kid is known far and wide as easy pickings. Or rather, was.

And no, the bully wasn’t injured. His suspension, according to TMZ, is for 21 days. The bullied kid’s suspension? Just four.

http://hotair.com/archives/2011/03/15/video-the-bully-body-slam/

By Brad Cohen, SportsGrid

Australian student Casey Heynes became the latest YouTube sensation—and unofficial anti-bullying PSA posterboy—when he was captured on video bodyslamming a bully that had hit him in the face.

The (much smaller) bully taunted and hit Casey after school while other kids laughed and videotaped the whole incident. Eventually, the much-bigger Casey could take no more, as he picked up the scrawny antagonizer and smashed him hard onto the concrete.

http://nation.foxnews.com/bullying/2011/03/15/teased-kid-snaps-body-slams-bully