Special needs student punched at Miss. high school

State News

March 9, 2011

Associated Press Associated Press Wed Mar 09, 2011, 08:18 AM CST

JACKSON — A video circulating on the Internet shows a Mississippi special needs student being punched in the face, and now the teenager’s family wants stiffer punishment for the attacker and implementation of a stronger bullying policy.

Amy Snyder said Monday that her nephew, a 16-year-old freshman at East Union High near New Albany, was punched Feb. 25. She said the other student was wearing a boxing glove when he hit her nephew in the school gymnasium during a study hall. She said it was a violent and unprovoked attack.

Snyder said her nephew functions on a 10-year-old level and has not been back to the school. The student didn’t tell anyone about the incident because the others involved told him it was a prank, Snyder said. The family learned about the video from a friend after students at school began talking about it. They found the video on the social networking site Facebook.

Snyder said school officials didn’t treat the incident as bullying because there had been no other reports of problems between her nephew and the other students. She said family members are angered by what they consider light punishment for those involved.

Snyder said the student who hit her nephew, who she described as a junior who turned 18 after the incident, and the boy who took the video on a cell phone were suspended five days. She said another student was suspended for fewer days, but she wasn’t sure how many.

Union County School District Superintendent Ken Basil told The Associated Press on Monday that the punishment described by the victim’s aunt is not completely accurate, but he said he’s prohibited from disclosing the exact punishments.

Basil also said the district followed policy in disciplining those involved. He said he would have to ask the school board attorney if the incident qualified as bullying under school policy.

The school contacted the sheriff’s department about the incident, Basil said. A sheriff’s investigator did not immediately respond Monday to a message.

The attack gained significant interest in the north Mississippi county after a video of the assault was posted on YouTube. It had been viewed more than 3,000 times by Monday. It was another video, which also was posted on YouTube, that angered many in the community.

In that video, Basil, the first-term superintendent, appears to laugh while discussing the assault during an interview with Tupelo, Miss., television station WTVA.

Basil said he doesn’t take the incident lightly, and the chuckles were his frustrated reaction to the television reporter’s questions.

“That was unfair the way they did that. She asked me the same thing over and over again and I’d been giving her the same answer over and over. I got frustrated,” Basil said. “It made me look like an insensitive jerk, which is not the truth.”

Jeff Houston, news director for WTVA, said the station stands by its reporting.

Snyder said Basil called and apologized for laughing.

Snyder said she planned to ask the school board at its meeting Monday for harsher punishment for the students involved, and for the district to adopt a zero-tolerance bullying policy.

“They need to get punishment that’s actually punishment. Not a week vacation,” she said, referring to the suspension.

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