Sending the Bus Monitor on Vacation
I bring this to you in spite of the fact that it’s barely local (Rochester area) and has already become typical dumb-media fodder. I bring it to you because I have kids, and teach them to be nice people. One of my kids is about the age of the kids in this video, and if I ever found out that she treated another human being the way these kids treated Greece, NY bus monitor Karen Klein, I’d completely lose my shit, and I’d personally hand her over to the cops.
On a school bus in suburban Rochester on Monday, a group of tween males verbally and physically abused the shit out of their bus monitor, ultimately making her cry. These kids were as relentless as they were ruthless, and the things that came out of their young mouths were utterly despicable. They should be prosecuted, and they should be banned from riding the buses for the remainder of their school careers – they’ve lost that privilege. All of them.
To underscore how stupid and feckless these little precious snowflakes are, they had their friends video record the whole thing, and it made its way onto YouTube yesterday. After finding its way onto Reddit and 4Chan it went viral and at least one of the videos has been seen well over a million times. (NSFW language)
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l93wAqnPQwk]
There are companion videos on YouTube taken by other kids from different angles, some of them showing the perpetrators’ faces. The most heartbreaking is this, from an interview of Ms. Klein by a Rochester reporter:
[blackbirdpie url=”https://twitter.com/PatriceWalsh13/status/215496073161084929″]
Just heartbreaking. You want to go hug this woman and tell her it’s ok – that these kids are worthless assholes.
That’s where the internet comes in.
As this Mashable article details, the outraged reaction was swift and furious. The kids were identified, as was the victim. But more significantly, Ms. Klein’s own Facebook account reveals that she’s by no means wealthy and doesn’t work as a bus monitor because she loves being harassed by tween idiots. So, an IndieGoGo fundraiser was begun to send her on vacation, or for whatever use she wants.
As of this writing, here’s the tally:
So, within a 24-hour period, we see the absolute worst of human behavior, and the very best.
They’ve cleared $147k already.
Sometimes the internet proves it’s worth. This is one of those times.
The internet is also doing a quality job of publicizing the names of the perpetrators. Twenty years ago, an incident like this results in, at best, a suspension or two. I think you are going to see criminal prosecutions on this one.
My immediate reaction was that she should have gone to the driver and had the bus return to the school and have the administration call the parents to come get their children. My wife said she should have had the bus stopped, called 911 and had the police take the children to a holding facility to wait for their parents. As Alan said, the children who did the abuse should not be allowed on school buses for a long time, if ever. Tolerating this type of behavior encourages repetition.
I haven’t even been able to watch the video, it makes my heart sick just hearing about it. I just wonder about the parents of these kids. How can your kids be growing up to be that evil? Are their parents like that? Is it from the media? Did they just never learn respect for your elders growing up? It’s just absolutely horrible! She’s up to $419,000 now, that is amazing!!