Deadly School Bullying Case Shocks Mexico

[Judi Lynn]

Source: Agence France-Presse

Deadly School Bullying Case Shocks Mexico
World | Agence France-Presse | Updated: May 24, 2014 02:58 IST

Mexico City: Mexico's president vowed Friday to launch an all-out battle against a spate of bullying in schools after a 12-year-old boy died from injuries sustained in a beating by classmates.

Hector Alejandro Mendez Ramirez died of head trauma at a hospital Tuesday, one week after schoolmates slammed him against a wall in front of school staff in the northeastern city of Ciudad Victoria, according to the victim's family.

The tragedy in Tamaulipas state made national headlines, putting a spotlight on a scourge that the education ministry says is on the rise.

Hundreds of people held a demonstration in Ciudad Victoria on Wednesday, demanding justice over the boy's death.

Speaking at a regional teacher training center in Tamaulipas, President Enrique Pena Nieto said he had instructed his education minister to speed up the implementation of a national anti-bullying program.

Read more: http://www.ndtv.com/article/world/deadly-school-bullying-case-shocks-mexico-529913?curl=1400886659

[TBF]

1. Rec for visibility. K&R nt

[dhol82]

2. doesn't say in the article

was there any repercussion for the classmates?

did the little shits get detention at least? sarcasm.

[christx30]

3. Many times, kids in school

do things to classmates that, if it were adults, would be considered crimes. Assaults, harassment, extortion. But because they are kids, nothing is done and the victims are told to "toughen up" and no one cares until something tragic happens to either the victim, or the bully is killed in retaliation.
The best way I would think to stop bullying is to treat the bullies as adults from a legal standpoint. Bully demands lunch money, send him to juvie on a robbery charge.
Give them real, nearly brutal consequences to their cruel behavior.

[ret5hd]

4. Exactly! Give kids brutal punishment!!!

What could go wrong?

Damn, you're smart.

[BrotherIvan]

5. NO

We need to understand why we are raising brutal kids. We need to teach parenting skills. Bully parents make bully kids. Parents are so overworked, they don't know what is going on with their kids. Bullies like Limbaugh or O'Reilly are held up as role models. Teachers have no power to stop a fight in a classroom, so bullies get free reign. The list of why there is such harsh bullying goes on and on. But the last thing we need is to lock up kids.

[christx30]

6. I was bullied in school.

There were absolutely no consequences for the bad kids, but I got in trouble if I did ANYTHING whatsoever to defend myself. If the kids have no fear of consequences, they have no reason to stop terrorizing their peers.
The teachers can't stop bullying. They punish the wrong kids with detention or suspension. There was a story a few years ago (which was covered here on DU) where a bully was stabbed to death by the kid he wanted to beat up. If the bully had other punishments put on him beforehand, maybe it wouldn't have escalated to that point.

[BrotherIvan]

7. I'm sorry that happened to you

We do need to find a way to deal with bullying. But jail isn't it. My mother was a teacher for 41 years, and without fail, when she had a parent-teacher conference over bullying, the parent was either a huge bully or defended the kid. But because she and her partner teachers had a good system, they were rather effective at stopping it in school. The problem often reaches beyond school though in playgrounds or walking home. Parents of the bullied often have to take protective measures to help their children. Sometimes, a parent shames the bullied kid so he or she won't speak up. There needs to be a whole lot of education around this issue. Unfortunately, bullies are often rewarded in the workplace later. It's a bad situation all around.

[christx30]

8. You can give all the hugs

and ice cream you want. But kids are just you people. And people are bastards. Laws are in place to protect people from each other outside of school from abuse and harassment. There are no such protections in school. It's practically The Purge in there. I beat up a guy and take $5 from him, I'll go to jail for robbery and assault. Kid does that in a school and a whole lot of nothing happens. He has no consequences for his actions. You want to talk about home life and causes of antisocial behavior, fine. But in the mean time kids are trapped in that hell every day. And it's getting more and more vicious every year. Without actual consequences for bad behavior, there's no reason to stop.

[ret5hd]

9. Exactly! Hugs or prison are the only two options!

[Gemini Cat]

10. So what's the solution?

[ret5hd]

11. Jail! I thought I was perfectly clear! Jail, jail, and more jail!

Jails are never full enough!

[Gemini Cat]

13. In other words...

you have no solution.

[Judi Lynn]

17. Can't imagine the trauma his former victim endured before he flipped out! My god.

Someone needed to help that child apply the brakes to his abusive behavior before it got him killed.

[christx30]

18. Yep.

If one stop abusing someone out of the goodness of their hearts, they should do it out of self preservation. You don't know who is going to simply take it and who is going to bring a knife to school.

[christx30]

27. The story was covered here on DU.

It was the stabbing death of Dylan Nuno. His victim/murder was Jorge Saavedra. Dylan tormented Jorge relently for months. Jorge altered his bus routes and skipped school to avoid the situation. I don't know of any involvement of teachers or the administration. But from my own personal experience, they are usually less than useless.
On the day of the killing, Dylan told everyone he was going to beat up Jorge. Jorge got off the bus 7 stops early to try to make it home. He also brought a knife. Dylan and his friends chased Jorge down and punched him in the back of the head. Jorge pulled out the knife and stabbed Dylan 11 times. Two of those wounds were fatal.
The judge agreed that the stabbing was self defense and released Jorge under Florida's Stand Your Ground law.


ETA: Found the DU link: http://www.democraticunderground.com/1002113081

[seveneyes]

14. And sanction bully parents too

Yes, there should be serious repercussion for kids that injure innocent kids.

[yurbud]

15. administrators tend to be extremists one way or the other: either deal with everything in house or

call the cops for kids who skip.

A common sense approach would be if it would be a crime for an adult to do it, the cops should be alerted if kids do it, as you said.

[WilliamPitt]

26. Bullying is assault and battery

unless it happens in a junior high school locker room. Then it's just boys being boys.

Been there. Many, many times.

A taste of the legal system for bullies is something I've been advocating for a long time.

[christx30]

28. You're exactly right.

Most of the time (at least what I saw when I was a kid) the bully will get off Scott free, but the kid that defends himself against the bully gets in trouble. Even the one teacher that claimed to be on my side threatened me with suspension, and talked me out of physically attacking any of the boys that were tormenting them. I was just supposed to take it.
My son (2nd grade) now is having trouble with mean kids in this class. Two of them push him down. My son doesn't yet realize how strong he is. I'm 5'10. I weigh 180. When my son has a fit, I have to use every bit of strength to hold onto him to prevent him from hurting himself or others. He's a sweet kid, but he could flatten those kids if he wanted to. I told him that no one has the right to mistreat him, and he has the right. God help those kids if my son ever discovers his power.

[Guaguacoa]

12. Bullying in Schools here is very

common and teachers have never done anything about it. The Number one and two reasons for bullying are skin color and at least perceived economic status. Kids with darker skin here get bullied by those even a shade lighter, most in the us probably could probably not tell the difference. This is indigenous looking kids (like my skin color) bullying slightly darker kids mercilessly. It's considered a class thing FAR worse than anything that happens in the US, one reason you rarely hear new immigrants call racism there. Most in the US do not know that. Economic is a part of that, but skin color more. Most there would probably scratch their heads to see dark skinned kids bullying those slightly darker.

My wife was bullied for it in school, the 18 year old daughter is bullied over very dark skin, I know a girl neighbor (17 or 18) that is very pretty but bullied big time. The teachers will not listen, do not care and nobody cares as it is accepted. I did see a woman go to school and outside on the street flattened a girl for bullying her daughter over slightly darker skin.

In hiring practices you can specify sex or age of who you are looking for. Most want women between 18 and 30 and fire them around 35. It happened to my sister in law that worked as an executive secretary in Mexico city. At 35 she was fired for a younger person, now she works packaging cooking pans for minimum wage. Less than 70 pesos a day at least 10 hrs a day.

So the point is that discrimination is rampant at the top so pena nieto is just blowing smoke.

They are also lying, nobody is shocked.

[Judi Lynn]

16. So good to read your comments, Guaguacoa. Those who've read you before know you don't lie.

We absolutely NEVER hear about the racism problem in Mexico.

All these things are NEVER covered by our own corporate "news" media, we remain as though blissfully alone in the Western Hemisphere.

I don't see how you could avoid being so sick, so angry at the absurdity, the stupidity of their behavior. It probably has driven some people completely mad over time.

If the control of the country weren't so tightly held by so few, you could hope you would get some more enlightened legislators as time goes by who could be moved to write some moral laws for the country. Doesn't sound as if that's going to happen any time soon. Don't give up hoping. We learn sometimes help does come when it's least expected.

We will all have to hope for the human race to awaken faster, to become more alive inwardly, more responsive.

I hope the next parts of your family's lives will be far kinder than what you have endured already, and to everyone else who has suffered for such insane reasons. In time we all know it's all going to change.

[Guaguacoa]

20. Thank you Judi Lynn

and I am VERY sick and angry at this behavior. It's just so hard to do anything at all when it's so widely accepted.

It's kind of like the problem we have with pets. People get puppies and put them out on the street when the get big and less cuddly so we have packs of dogs loose and starving. If they are kept it's typical to keep them on the roof, no exercise. A pitbull has been on the second floor (small walkway around the building) of the house next door since he was a puppy. He has only been down 4 times in his life since going up and fell all 4. Live "burglar alarms".

My point is it's so widely accepted that nobody will listen. People are very much up in arms about Mexico city talking about giving pets more rights.

Yes, the country is held tightly by a few and they have it in a stranglehold. They are very corporation oriented with very little protection for consumers.

Don't feel bad, here they run what pena nieto allows. We have to get it away from mainstream. There are people living here from the us that speak no english and rely on english versions of the mainstream sources and have no clue of the country they live in.

Thank you for the kind words and your undying compassion Judi Lynn, when I am here I look for your threads.

Saludos!

[geek tragedy]

19. Kids see that narcos own the country because

they bully successfully.

Kids are going to learn what they see not what they're taught. Tamaulipas is a particularly rough area.

[Guaguacoa]

21. Part of it, but it goes back farther than that.

Class and skin color bullying have been going on since the spanish invasion. Well, class bullying even well before that.

I agree with the narcos making it worse though. Here regular crime has skyrocketed along with the narco violence because they see what bad guys with guns can do to disarmed good guys. Stores wind up shutting down because they are robbed and assaulted constantly at will and I have never seen one person stopped or caught. Yes this attitude gets emulated all the way down to the children.

[geek tragedy]

22. yes, i was probably inaccurate if I implied that this was just limited to the narcos.

Before the narcos there was plenty of it going on, both within Mexico and coming from el norte and from europe.

but I am glad to see people coming out and saying it is not acceptable. that is how bullying eventually goes away

[Guaguacoa]

23. I wasn't trying to be argumentative, just something

I am passionate about. I agree, hopefully the future will be a little brighter.

Saludos!

[geek tragedy]

24. saludos, i did not think you were being argumentative, i was just

appreciating the point you made.

[Guaguacoa]

25. Thank you my friend.:)nt