On April 3, 2016, Oregon Live reported that a 12-year-old student from Beaumont Middle School, in Portland, Oregon, had been handcuffed and removed from the premises on Wednesday, March 30, 2016. The young girl was arrested a few days after pulling another student by her hair and pushing a substitute teacher.

When the young girl was arrested she threw herself on the floor and stomped her feet. Spokesman Sergeant Pete Simpson said that she spat all over the back seat of the patrol car. Her mother arrived at the school and according to Simpson, she verbally abused the officers. The officers ended their conversation with the mother and drove the 12-year-old to a juvenile detention center in Northeast Portland.

The victim reported on March 30, that the girl had pulled her across the classroom by her hair, 12 days earlier. After the officers took the victim’s report, they went to the middle school to arrest the 12-year-old attacker. She could be charged with fourth-degree assault and harassment. The case will be heard at the Multnomah County juvenile court.

On Saturday, April 2, Simpson told Oregon Live that generally school fights are dealt with by school administrators. However, the victim of this crime asked the police for help and Simpson said the officers reacted appropriately.

A nine-year-old was arrested in May 2013, six days after she assaulted another youth in an after-school club. The police took her mug shot and fingerprinted her.

In Georgia, a kindergartner was arrested at her elementary school. The child had bit a doorknob, assaulted the principal and jumped on a paper shredder.

Christine Miles, the spokeswoman for the Portland Public Schools, stated that it is useful to remember that children who act out in school, generally have a stressful home life, they may even experience bullying themselves.

All of the names in this article have been changed in order to protect those involved.

A  teacher used to use peer tutoring to help students who were shy and picked on or needed help in school. He would pair the student with one who was more confident. This gave the struggling student extra help, someone to talk to, and hopefully a friend that may even help them to blossom a little. It also made the mentoring student feel good to be asked to help a peer, usually.

The teacher paired up two boys named Emile and John. The teacher, Mr. Pearce talked to both Emile and John and they agreed to try the peer tutoring. Pearce was particularly proud of this pairing because to him, it seemed as if it was the perfect match of cultural diversity and racial integration. He thought it was working. Then he saw the horrible YouTube video of John beating Emile in the school bathroom. It was messy and Pearce was horrified. John was arrested and the video was promptly removed from YouTube.

A young man was beaten severely in middle school. He was told he was annoying and weird and that is why they bullied him. His name is Kasey. When he started ninth grade kids stole and destroyed his belongings and in the tenth grade, things became violent. Kasey was assaulted daily; punched between classes and pushed into lockers. He tried to stand up for himself but could not get the boys to stop. In the eleventh grade, he became a bully. He regularly beat up two of his classmates for vengeance and irritability. Kasey reports that at 18, his is calmer now. He understands that he became a bully because he was angry and was fighting to gain back his self-esteem. He has self-esteem today, not because he fought for it, but because he decided to accept himself and others just the way they are.

In middle school, Angela was jumped by four girls and the principal expelled HER! At her new school, kids were spreading rumors about her and what had happened to her.

Angela was threatened and kids of all ages tried to get her to physically fight with them. She told her teachers, guidance counselor, and her parents but was unable to get help from anyone.

In the tenth grade, her best friend called her to come over and she was jumped by four boys and a girl. She tried to hang herself, but her brother stopped her.

Angela is 18 and in the twelfth grade. She is on a mission to help the victims of bullies. She is writing a research paper about bullying and she is hoping to prompt schools to stop the bullying in their district.

Erika is still being bullied. It started with rumors, unspeakable things, then it became physical in high school. She refused to tell anybody, other than her mom. Her mom called the school, but her call was not returned.

The assistant principal called Erika into the office, where all of her bullies were sitting. This would be a nightmare for anyone. The kids were all spoken to, but no consequences were given or even suggested.

Erika overdosed on anti-depressants and anxiety medication. The school blamed Erika for her own issues even though her mom had a meeting with the school officials. She wanted to put a plan in place to keep her daughter safe, however, the school failed again.

Erika was in the hallway during class, when an older boy slapped her, pushed her into the bathroom, and raped her. She was told by the school resource officer that it was the boy’s word against hers. Erika has two more years of high school before she graduates.

Some of these children asked for help at school and were either turned away or the adults that said they would help them, instead, failed them. This is not about painful words that still leave deep wounds. This is about bruises and blood, even visits to the emergency room.

Have people forgotten that the children have some civil rights too? No child, in any country, should go to school scared. These are the children who most often do not go on and do not become successful because they were never told they could.

Some decide they are going to change how they feel about themselves and how others view them. These are the ones who enter the military, become boxers or mixed martial arts fighters, even guidance counselors.

In the fifth grade, Maddie encouraged a cafeteria full of students to chant, “Let’s kill Beth!” “Let’s kill Beth!”

A student was dared to bite Lisa. It is 10 years later and she still has the scar it left. She started skipping school. She did not think anyone would believe her, so she lied about why she was not going to her classes.

Her parents made her return to school and Lisa could hear teenagers whispering about her. She had no idea what they were saying. Then she heard the teachers talking about her! They were telling each other that Lisa had mental and physical problems and needed to go to a “special school.”

Lisa had planned to kill herself when she got home but another girl said, “Hi,” to her. The girl was also being bullied by other students. Lisa was relieved to discover she was not the only one.

The next day, Lisa’s new friend killed herself. This made Lisa angry.

Lisa’s parents told her they were going to move but first, her parents visited her school. Her mother told the students that, “Everyone is different and having something special about them was what made them unique. This does not make people strange or weird, it simply means special.”

Lisa wants victims of bullies to know they are not alone and they do not have to suffer from depression like she did. She said, “If you commit suicide, the bullies win.”

Randi was in her freshman year of high school and went off-campus for lunch. 12 students followed her off school grounds and asked her for her pack of cigarettes. Randi told the students, “No,” and they started calling her names. When she did not give in to their demand, they responded by beating her with sticks, bricks, and their fists.

She spent two weeks recovering in the hospital. A police report was filed on her behalf. There was no punishment given to any of her assailants, however, Randi was suspended for two weeks because she left the school campus. She was suspended after she was discharged from the hospital.

Randi decided that no one was ever going to beat her at school again. To ensure this promise would hold, she became a verbal bully and changed her overall demeanor. This caused others to fear her. Nonetheless, she was not beaten at school again.

Her demeanor, however, affected her in adulthood because her character did not change. She continued to instill fear in those around her; family members, significant others, and her children.

Gradually, and with help, she was able to find her kind-hearted-self over time. Currently, Randi is 60 years old, and she still struggles with high school memories, the desire to intimidate others, and her true self.

A young man who prefers to go by the name, Wolf, spent a lifetime being bullied at home and at school. He was physically abused by his father and picked on at school for being heavier than others. He was even called “gay” because he was different.

Over time, this pushed him to a point where he no longer cared about anything. He was expelled from two schools because he became a bully and started fights on school grounds.

In the seventh grade, Wolf, looking for an outlet for his hurt and anger, began cutting himself. He was consumed by thoughts of pain and destruction; his own and that of others. At the age of 18, and entering his senior year of high school, he says he still enjoys causing other people pain. He targets those that hurt his family and does not care about the repercussions. The following poem was written by Wolf, specifically for this story:

The boy sits staring at the moon
Blade upon his lap
He reaches for it
Puts it firmly in his hand
He slices one wrist to shreds

He screams but nobody hears, nobody cares
He’s alone
He has nobody at home

He’s a laughing stalk at school
Everybody picks on him

He has nothing but the craving for pain, death and destruction
He wants nothing but to disappear

The boy continues slicing each arm until crimson is smothering the blade
He licks the red crimson from the blade
It tastes metallic
He feels the metallic crystals on his tongue
Irony flakes

It is a drunken paramour
He has found his new addiction
A craving made from bullying

He can’t take it anymore
He seeks suicide
He’s hunting for a way to die

He goes to his father’s room, gets into the gun cabinet and takes a 30-ott-6
He walks into his room
Puts it to his face
And pulls the trigger.

He’s gone
Nobody will notice
It’s over.

Bullying drives teens to kill themselves every damn day
It needs to stop.

By Jeanette Smith

Top Image Courtesy of Nilufer Gadgieva’s Flickr Page – Creative Commons License
First Inline Image Courtesy of Terry Freedman’s Flickr Page – Creative Commons License
Second Inline Image Courtesy of Thomas Ricker’s Flickr Page – Creative Commons License
Third Inline Image Courtesy of Pimkie’s Flickr Page – Creative Commons License
Fourth Inline and Featured Image Courtesy of Thomas Ricker’s Flickr Page – Creative Commons License