Funds pour in for taunted NY bus monitor in video
Source: Agencies |
June 23, 2012, Saturday
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Print Edition
Print Edition
A video of four US seventh-grade boys mercilessly taunting a 68-year-old bus monitor in New York state that went viral has turned the victim into an international fundraising juggernaut and opened her tormentors to an onslaught of threats and abuse.
From around the world, small donations for Karen Klein poured into the crowd-funding site indiegogo.com, at one point crashing the site and pulling in a staggering US$443,057 by early yesterday.
At the same time, police in the Rochester suburb of Greece, New York, were stepping up patrols around the houses of the middle-schoolers accused of taunting her. Police didn't name the boys but their purported identities leaked out on the web.
Greece Police Captain Steve Chatterton was compelled to warn against vigilante justice. One boy received more than a thousand death threats and commentators online were clear - and sometimes venomous - in their desire that the boys be severely punished.
"A threat for a threat does not make the situation better," Chatterton said at a news conference on Thursday.
The verbal abuse was captured in a 10-minute cellphone video recorded on Monday by a student of Athena Middle School and later posted to YouTube. The video shows Klein trying her best to ignore the stream of profanity, insults and outright threats. One student taunted: "You don't have a family because they all killed themselves because they don't want to be near you."
Klein's oldest son killed himself 10 years ago.
Eventually, she appears to break down in tears.
The swell of support for Klein follows a recent surge in awareness of bullying that has brought the issue from the classroom to the stage and screen to the White House.
"I've got these nice letters, emails, Facebook messages," Klein said. "It's like, wow, there's a whole world out there that I didn't know. It's really awesome."
From around the world, small donations for Karen Klein poured into the crowd-funding site indiegogo.com, at one point crashing the site and pulling in a staggering US$443,057 by early yesterday.
At the same time, police in the Rochester suburb of Greece, New York, were stepping up patrols around the houses of the middle-schoolers accused of taunting her. Police didn't name the boys but their purported identities leaked out on the web.
Greece Police Captain Steve Chatterton was compelled to warn against vigilante justice. One boy received more than a thousand death threats and commentators online were clear - and sometimes venomous - in their desire that the boys be severely punished.
"A threat for a threat does not make the situation better," Chatterton said at a news conference on Thursday.
The verbal abuse was captured in a 10-minute cellphone video recorded on Monday by a student of Athena Middle School and later posted to YouTube. The video shows Klein trying her best to ignore the stream of profanity, insults and outright threats. One student taunted: "You don't have a family because they all killed themselves because they don't want to be near you."
Klein's oldest son killed himself 10 years ago.
Eventually, she appears to break down in tears.
The swell of support for Klein follows a recent surge in awareness of bullying that has brought the issue from the classroom to the stage and screen to the White House.
"I've got these nice letters, emails, Facebook messages," Klein said. "It's like, wow, there's a whole world out there that I didn't know. It's really awesome."
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