Disabled Utah
Disabled Logan youth was beaten in school; mom infuriated
Original Post Date: 26th Jan, 2008 - 4:13pm
I know that not all parents have the opportunity to homeschool but to send a disable kid to school these days is like throwing them into a den of lions!
The seven-second video clip is short but sickening: A boy sprawled on the floor of a school classroom struggles to get up as a bigger boy pounces on his head. Laughing maniacally into the camera, the fully clothed attacker repeatedly rubs his crotch on his victim's head, which is jammed face-down into the floor. As the youth finishes his assault, the cell phone camera pans jerkily away, showing several people - including an adult-sized figure - standing nearby. Gereka Bracey, of Logan, was horrified to find the grainy, black-and-white video clip on her son's MySpace page this week. But her horror grew to outrage when she found that the victim in the video was her son - 12-year-old Diontay Boone - and that the video had been maliciously posted on Diontay's own MySpace page by his attackers after they persuaded the mentally and physically disabled boy to give them his password. The videographer also posted the clip on YouTube. The humiliating clip capped five months of torment that started in September with bullies' dubbing Diontay "dummy-slow" and escalated to near-daily taunting, schoolyard assaults and the theft of Diontay's winter coat on a recent frigid, snowy day. But the bullies who posted their ambush online crossed the line, a furious Bracey said yesterday. "It really bothers me because not only did they do this to my son, but they victimize him again and again and again every time anybody views that video," said Bracey, who also reported the incident to the Police Department's special victims unit. School district spokesman Fernando Gallard said the two eighth-graders responsible for the Dec. 4 assault at the Thurgood Marshall School, in Olney, have been suspended and may face additional discipline pending the outcome of a district investigation. "We would consider this to be cyber-bullying," Gallard said, adding that the students also violated school rules prohibiting electronic devices in classrooms. The science teacher who was in the classroom when the attack occurred has been removed from teaching duties and may face disciplinary action, Gallard said. "We see a failure to supervise. We are investigating whether the teacher was paying attention or not," Gallard said. Diontay will be permitted to transfer schools, he added. While Bracey welcomed such measures, she complained that they were woefully overdue and came after months of indifference to her pleas for help. "I've been out to the school at least 10 times, when he's been beat or harassed," Bracey said. "But I know it happened way more than that - Tay-Tay got so adjusted to being harassed at school that he don't come home and tell me no more, because after awhile, he got harassed for his mother coming to school too." Diontay doesn't like to talk about the bullying, saying only that he believes that he's victimized because "they bigger than me." Diontay, - known as "Tay-Tay" to his family - spent his early grades in Virginia. He was a special-education student diagnosed as mildly mentally retarded, autistic and partially deaf. His public school in Virginia provided hearing-assistance devices and tailored lessons to accommodate his mental deficiencies, helping him make the honor roll last year, Bracey said.
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