Students tape freshman boy to bench and punch him in groin

This is insane. In my old highschool, 'hazing' only occured during the first part of school, and had to be with the newbie's consent. Punching someone in the groin is never ok, there can be serious damage, and if I were the mother of this poor child, I would definitely press charges on top of the suspension. Suspension is a joke...all it does is send these kids home for 5 days..ooooo scary for them, a weeks vacation is all they will see it as.

The parents were happy with a suspension. My son and his friend got a 10 day suspension when the friend decide to streak the school in his boxers. My son was outside driving the car the boy would leave in. These kids should have been expelled and charged with assault at the minimum. The coach should also be held responsible and if this hazing is an annual thing, the school and district administrators are also liable.

I think that poor kid's parents should have pressed charges! All they got was a slap on the hand and told not to do that again basically. Suspended for 5 days from school? Gee, most likely they will be sitting at home eating Cheetos and playing video games. Like that is a huge punishment! Then when they get back to school, how do you think they will treat the boy that got them suspended? That is horrible. I would have pressed charges to teach those boys a lesson! When someone is not watching next time, what will they do then?

I come from the town that it happened in. My gandparents house is there. I don't think it was anything more than bullying. I'm not by any means saying it was right, but I don't think it was as serious as some people are thinking. Yes he was humiliated and hurt. But I do think their punishment fit and would act as a deterant. They were suspended for 5 days, but also can't participate on their sports teams for the rest of the season. I have a link to the local newspaper if anyone would like to read it. http://ledger.southofboston.com/articles/2007/01/26/news/news05.txt

I think the school lacks in security. How did that event happen while inside a school campus. School should be childrens second home where they learn and be safe like when they are at home with their family.

There is no way in the world I would be satisfied with 5 days of suspension. What a slap on the wrist. I would definitely get me a lawyer and sue someone. Not even for money but for the principle of the whole incident. Why were they unsupervised? I am sure some adult should have been in the locker room!! What gave these kids the right to put their hands on the freshman!!! Yeah we know kids get teased a bit by upperclass students, but this goes beyond teasing this is torture!!!

You must be kidding, right? The parents didn't do anything? They were satisfied? Ok! I think they are satisfied by the fact that these 5 boys will do it again and again to their son and it will cost them every time 5 days without school and lots of fun.

I think when you have a behavior that causes physical and possible mental harm to someone the punishment should be more severe. There is no excuse for one person treating another person that way.

What a terrible story!! I think most hazing incidents are cruel and downright dangerous. I don't think suspension of 5 days would be enough for something like this one, I think the school board let them off too easy. This is more like an attack, and it was premeditated, too. I would hope that the local police force would press charges against them, otherwise it's sending the message to other kids that this type of thing is ok to do to others. I can't believe that the parents are pleased with the outcome, if it was my kid I sure wouldn't be!

in florida last year a law was passed that stated you would get up to 5 or 10 years in prison if physical harm was caused to a person during hazing. and a bunch of people were trying to outlaw it altogether i think that is what they should get. they basically got told "don't do it again" and i know that had that happened in florida, t hey would be in jail with bubba.

Only 5 days? They could have seriously hurt this boy and everyone is satisfied with 5 days?? 5 days just says to the other kids at the school that they can hurt whoever they want and they'll only get 5 days? If one of my kids did that, you could bet, they'd have a LONG punishment at home. There is just no excuse for that.

I can't believe that the school only gave them a 5 day suspension! That's like a "vacation" to these kids. They'll love having the time off. The school needs to get a lot stricter with the punishments for this type of incident. This is not a hazing "prank"; it has crossed the line and become a crime- an attack. The boy's parents should insist on a stricter punishment and should also involve the local police to press assault charges. Teenagers need to start getting a clear message that this type of behavior will not be tolerated. If you just give them a slap on the wrist, they'll keep doing the same thing, and maybe worsel Who knows if the boy who was assaulted could have some permanent damage? What if he has trouble with fertility or a low sperm count in the future? What about his mental anguish? And did the school do anything about the fact that they did not provide the proper adult supervision in the locker room?

Hearing about things like this make me feel so lucky that I wans't bullied all that often in school myelf. Especially considering that i was overweight and had some acne earlier than most kids, I would have expected to have been made fun of even more than i was. I think that i got off lucky. I feel surprised that this boy's parents are happy with those kids just being suspended. I think that to have done such a cruel thing, they should have to take some counselling or maybe anger management before comign back to school.

I think it is sad that our society has become so cruel and insensitive. I think they should have been kicked out of school for the remainer of the year and forced to pick up school classes next year. This kind of behavior is unexceptable and it is time kids leaned some respect for other.

I've heard stories of hazing in colleges or in fraternity initiations, but not in high school! Hazing of any kind should be prohibited and vigorously punished! 5 days suspension sounds like they got off light. What if they had permanently damaged the boy? made him sterile? unable to father children? whatever! They were just bullies! I'll bet the parents of the victim decided not to press charges for the sake of their son...he probably didn't want to "make things worse". How sad.

I read over the article on the incident someone else posted the link for. Those boys should have been expelled and the on-lookers should have been suspended. They first physically tried to bring in one boy and when that one escaped they grabbed another. This was a deliberate plan to bring someone in there with the intent to hurt them. I don't care if they planned to hit him in the groin or not, they planned to at the very least humiliate him if not do physical harm. Those boys acted without care for the other students. Not only should they have been expelled but charges should have been pressed against them. If I had been the boy's mother there would have been hell to pay for what they did. I cannot believe they were satisfied with just the suspenending of the offenders. Their son is going to have to continue to face those boys every school day. It will be torture for him let alone how those boys might treat him whenever school officials aren't looking and obviously they aren't paying much attention if they can allow it to happen in the first place.

I think that even if the parents didn't press charges, that the school should have contacted the police. The should have received a harsher punishment for the crime. It is things like that that turn people into sociopaths. They could have cause a lot more serious problems by hitting this boy in the groin.

Its tragic! Nowadays we should train our kids to some self defense to protect themselves as well as to teach them to use their trained skills in a good way and not to harm others just for fun.

i think there is something wrong with those kids. i mean ragging the boy is ok but punching him in the groin is just plain stupid. i feel the kids need psychiatric evaluation

I think it is right down rediculous that these kids have time to go unsupervised. I do not think they punishemtn those kids got are good enough. I think bullying in schools or anywhere for that matter needs to be stopped. These kids shouldn't have time to be doing this to other kids. If something happened to my daughter in school, I would be there Johnny on the spot and ask them how in the world did this happen, when my child and the other children are supposed to be there to learn and to be supervised at all times. I'm not sure about who I would press charges against. I may charge the school and the other children, even though they won't face penalty being minors, but I feel it may teach them that it is not right.