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Loading ...School bus driver charged in homophobic attack on student
10.15.2008 3:23pm EDT
(Bourbonnais, Illinois) An elementary school bus driver has been charged with leading a homophobic attack on a 10-year old student passenger.
The Kankakee Sheriff’s Police Department said that the boy was taunted by the driver who then encouraged other students to chase and beat the child.Chief Deputy Ken McCabe said the incident occurred on a Bourbonnais Elementary School District bus which was returning students to their homes last Friday.
McCabe said the driver repeatedly called the boy “gay.”
”When the boy got off the bus, the driver encouraged several other students to go after him and tackle him. Our investigation shows that occurred,” McCabe told The Daily Journal.
He also said the driver is under investigation for joining the students in chasing the boy and grabbing him.
Bourbonnais School District officials would only say the driver has been terminated.
Charged with mob action, endangering the life of a child and battery is Russell A. Schmalz, 46.
Hopefully, this pathetic f**k will see some serious jail time.
We seem to be facing an epidemic of hate in the public schools. I was harrassed all through middle school and high school. My hope is that they throw this jerk in prison. The students should be forced to go through some sort of rehabilitation process - students that attack other students make schools unsafe. Why should they be allowed to continue at a school when they endanger the other students?
This is precisely why hate crimes legislation is very necessary. That kid would NOT have been beaten up if had been perceived to be str8.
The charges against Mr. Schmalz - as serious and as appropriate as they are - do not go far enough. Sadly, his actions as an adult have set an example that children under his care will learn as to what kind of things you can do to queers in America. Outrageous.
This is what happens when schools aren’t given the appropriate funds to hire good people and then train them to deal with diversity and other issues that come up in schools.
I think Mr.no dick Schmalz should be ashamed to call himself a man or human being, it is disgusting in this day and age what fear will do to humans! Grow-up America we are not going anywhere!
Real brave guy, beating up a 10 year kid.
This poor kid might be traumatized for life by this, fearful of people getting close to him physically and emotionally, unable to trust and unable to love.
This ugly man may have psychologically damaged and deeply wounded another human being for many years to come. It may take years of counseling and years of love from his family to hopefully end the terrifying nightmares the poor kid might have and his likely fears of adults and of other kids and to bring him around.
The driver is what I would call a “terrorist” for what he did to that kid. Obviously too dangerous a guy to be out walking and driving the streets. Needs to spend at least 10 years in jail and then be barred from working and/or contact with all children for life and be given a lifelong violent offender status and be made to regularly report to the local police whereever he lives.
Why was a person like this hired to drive a school bus in the first place? Shouldn’t they screen drivers better?
I had a similar problem with one of my bus drivers back in junior high. I went to a relatively rural school, where even our principal called me a faggot in his office one day after I’d been sent there for “fighting.” Though I was actually frequently bashed by my fellow students, I never fought back at that school, but even the administration was homophobic, so they used any excuse they could to “discipline” me.
I’m absolutely disheartened to see that little has changed in public schools since I was a wee lad.
Can’t say I’m surprised. Bourbonnais is a pretty backwards place.
OUTRAGE!!!
This is the perfect example of why we should have a hate crimes statute. In addition to being prosecuted for mob action, endangering the life of a child and battery, the bus driver should receive a sentence enhancement for committing a hate crime against someone he perceived as gay and repeatedly called “fag.” He did not pick some random person to dehumanize, he singled out someone based on his perceptions that the boy was part of a group he hated. The boy, unfortunately, will be traumatized and stigmatized above and beyond what would have occurred with a random attack. Additionally, any other LGBT children on the bus or going to that school will also likely feel victimized and abused due to the bus driver’s outrageous actions.
In Wisconsin v. Mitchell, the Supreme Court of the United States unanimously wrote that such “bias-motivated crimes are more likely to provoke retaliatory crimes, inflict distinct emotional harms on their victims, and incite community unrest. The Court citing Blackstone wrote, “it is but reasonable that, among crimes of different natures, those should be most severely punished which are the most destructive of the public safety and happiness.”
When the core of a person’s identity is attacked, the degradation and dehumanization is especially severe. Additional emotional and physiological problems are likely to occur to the victim. Society thus has an obligation to appropriately punish the offender so disempowerment of the affected group of people does not result.
Here is the best example for a 7.5 million dollar lawsuit against the school, the administrators in the front office, the person who hired the S.O.B., the parents of the children who joined in the attack, and the Homophobic Bastard bus driver himself. Seems that the only thing that will change the callous anti-gay culture in public schools will be law suits that result in huge cash money judgements against local school districts for their failure to act proactively for the equal protection of all school age children. In this time that all school districts are scrabling for tax money, perhaps the loss of a huge money judgement will be the the very thing that will propt a public awareness of the necessity for regulations that prescribe zero tolerance for harrassement and bullying in any form or expression. When one school district gets slapped up side the head with a hefty fine, it sends chills down the spines of all the other schools in close proximity. My hope is for the parents of this poor child to hire the most ambitious money hungry lawyer they can find to sue the shit out of everyone remotely connected to the school all the way up to the State Legislature. Sounds like grounds for a civil action lawsuit to me simply because of the boy’s age and sex. It should have nothing to do with sexuality. Simply the perception and expression of hate in the execution of a crime against a minor by a public official is reason enough to pursuit legal action. I see no real distinction between the ugliness of the reported action by the adult than it would have been if was an actual rape. The psychological damage is irrepairable.
Government Schools.
Classic reason why we need to allow parents to decide where they send their children to school and to provide school vouchers.
yea i dont feel bad …tuffin the boy up some really he’s a boy not a girl and the fact that he’s a child doesn’t really excuse that … well damn if the bus driver didn’t tell him somebody was going to sooner or later and just as harshly and as rude as the bus driver, now the fact that the bus driver was a grown man kinda shows his character but boys gotta be tuff to make it in the world and just because he’s a sissy doesn’t pass the fact that he still has a balls and penis duuurrhhh .. the bus driver got what he deserved really but the little boy has to learn from this “BAD” experience
Trace are you kidding? I think this is one more reason Log Cabin people who stand with a party against hate crime laws should be shunned by the Gay community. I can’t wait until the next Parade I will lead booing of the traitorous Uncle Toms. I hope this man gets at least 20 years.