School Bullying Council

A comuter keyboard is seen – File / Photo: Ami Vitale/Getty Images

Reporting Fran Schneidau

HARTFORD, CT (WCBS 880) - Connecticut’s top law enforcement official wants to crack down on cyber bullying.

WCBS 880 Connecticut Bureau Chief Fran Schneidau with State Attorney General George Jepsen

Right now, if a bully who targets kids on the internet is caught, he or she would likely be charged with a misdemeanor – breach of peace or, perhaps, harassment.

In Connecticut, Attorney General George Jepsen is pushing a bill that would make cyber bullying a criminal matter – a felony. He says would-be bullies need to know the consequences.

“They need to change their behavior. They’ll be better people for it,” Jepsen told WCBS 880 Connecticut Bureau Chief Fran Schneidau. “We need to change our culture and send a message that bullying isn’t just part of growing up. It’s something that’s wrong and we’re not going to tolerate it.”

In cyber bullying, the instigator is rarely caught.

“You have the anonymity of being on the internet. So nobody knows exactly where this is coming from,” says Stamford‘s youth officer Sgt. Joe Kennedy, who believes that upgrading the law will heighten awareness.

“It’s also to send a message to the parents that if you have kids that participate in this type of activity, that they are going to be charged with it,” says Kennedy.

He notes just last week a list of names of dozens of school girls locally was posted on the internet singling them out as promiscuous.

Jepsen says there is a strong movement toward passage of the bill.

Do you think there should be tougher cyber bullying laws? Sound off below

http://newyork.cbslocal.com/2011/03/21/connecticut-attorney-general-pushes-to-criminalize-cyber-bullying/

The bully gets a new perspective on life: upside down and heading for the concrete.

Casey Heynes, a 10th Grader in Sydney Australia, fought back against a schoolyard bully Monday and is now a world-wide hero for doing it.

A friend of the bully recorded a video of the confrontation to post on YouTube to humiliate Casey, but things didn’t turn out that way.  The video went viral, people from all over the world are applauding Casey for fighting back, the citizens of Sydney are divided over it and now the bully looks like the chump.

Sixteen-year old Casey says he “snapped” after constant bullying because of his weight.

“All I was doing was defending myself. I’ve never had so much support,” he said during an interview with A Current Affair.

The bully is a much smaller 7th Grader who felt confident that he could punch Casey in the face without having a fight on his hands.   He backed the much larger boy against the wall and started throwing punches.  Finally Casey had enough and picked him up and threw him down hard on the concrete.

He was asked if he was a superhero, he replied with a laugh, “No, but I wish I was.”

Both boys were suspended for four days in accordance with established school guidelines.

The people of Sydney may be divided over the affair, but the world is clearly not:  websites and Facebook fanpages like  Casey the Punisher or this YouTube tribute with music sprang up overnight hailing his action.

You be the judge:

http://aquapour.com/schoolyard-bully-video-goes-viral/556427/

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

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