School Bullying Council

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

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The parents of a sophomore who transferred to Ballard High School because of alleged bullying at another school have filed a lawsuit claiming Jefferson County Public Schools is preventing the student from playing sports this year, despite a ruling from the Kentucky High School Athletic Association granting her eligibility.

The lawsuit, filed on Thursday in Jefferson Circuit Court, claims Maddie Martin transferred from du Pont Manual High School in fall 2010 because she was being bullied and harassed and enrolled at Ballard, where she filed an appeal with the athletic association to play basketball and softball, as she had previously.

After a hearing, the athletic association granted the 16-year-old an exemption to play at Ballard without having to sit out a year, as is typical, because a hearing officer found Maddie was “bullied and the coaches at du Pont Manual failed to intercede to protect her from this treatment,” according to a passage from the lawsuit quoting the athletic association ruling. “She was clearly entitled to their protection as she was being harassed. There is not any evidence to support the idea that Maddie’s transfer was motivated in whole or in part by the desire to participate in athletics.”

But attorney Teddy Gordon, who represents the Martins, said at a press conference Thursday that the school district “refused to follow the order” of the athletic association and the family is now asking a circuit judge to intervene and allow Maddie to immediately participate in varsity athletics.

No court hearing date has been set.

The lawsuit names the school district, Jerry Wyman, director of athletics for the school district, and Joseph Burks, administrative supervisor of athletics for the school district, who, the suit claims, ruled Maddie is only eligible to play sports at Seneca High School, her “resides” school, or the one to which she would be assigned based on her address, which has been labeled a failing school.

Gordon said the school district has its own rule — outside of the athletic association — where students transferring are not eligible to play for a year.

http://www.courier-journal.com/article/20110310/NEWS01/303100036/Lawyer-plans-lawsuit-behalf-student-who-wants-play-sports-Ballard-High-School?odyssey=nav%7Chead

“Bullies Never Win and Winners Never Bully” is a winning entry in the 2011 Bully Slam competition sponsored by the City of Kirkland, Washington. This video was presented at the competition showcase on February 4, 2011 at the Kirkland Performance Center to a near capacity crowd. Here are links for more information about the event: King 5 TV interview with Jack Donley, coordinator of 2011 Bully Slam Kirkland Patch newspaper article (published 02/21/2011 ?) kirkland.patch.com Finn Hil

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