Newsy: Father Threatens School Bus Bullies

A father is charged with disorderly conduct and disturbing a school function after he allegedly threatened to kill those responsible for bullying his daughter.

An angry father threatens to kill children and a school bus driver after hearing his daughter, who suffers from cerebral palsy, was bullied on the way to school. (ABC)

The father, James Jones, told police boys had placed an open condom on his daughter's head, smacked her, twisted her ear and shouted rude comments at her.

CBS affiliate WFOR talked to one of the kids threatened by Jones. The boy and his mother say his words were hard to hear: “He said that he was going to “f” the bus driver first than he was going to do it to everybody else on the bus. What was your initial reaction? I was pissed, I was upset to the point where I wanted to cry.”

Police arrested Jones on charges of disorderly conduct and disturbing a school function. A writer for the Examiner says she can understand where the angry dad was coming from: “Consider this was your 13 year-old daughter that already is struggling with a handicap she has no control over. Consider she is being bullied, and kids are actually putting condoms on her head as they taunt her? Think of her feelings? Think of her emotions? If a tear doesn't come to your eye, or you don't have any sort of compassion for her, you are most likely in the minority.”

Children and parents tell WKMG bullying has become common on bus rides: “Some kids on there always try to bother with you. Two girls who told her to get out of the seat got in a fight with somebody else today on the bus. No I don’t feel comfortable riding the bus. I don’t want my child to get on a school bus and have to hear words like that.”

A writer from The Stir says there is a lack of communication from schools: “I get where Mr. Jones was coming from. You don't always get a full report from the school (mine came from the mouth of another 5-year-old for cripes' sakes), and all too often there's been no supervisory intervention at all.”

NBC reports a quarter of all public school kids report being bullied weekly, and experts say parents don’t hear about it until it has already happened. 

Children’s Movement of Florida’s David Lawrence tells NBC bullying is on the rise and programs need to be put in place to stop it: “It’s not going away, frankly, it’s escalating. Every school ought to have a anti-bullying program. Bullying in schools. One in three teenagers say it’s happened to them. The difficulty, getting the victims to speak up before it blows up.”

So what do you think, did the father respond irrationally or was he just being a protective father?

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