Viewing a single comment thread. View all comments

lotusvagabond t1_ja8z1ww wrote

Reply to comment by BT8139 in Student charged after bullied New Jersey school girl takes her own life by r4816

THANK YOU. We need to call it both to be fair but yes this was assault. And all adults directly and indirectly involved who did NOT take action should be charged with failing to protect a minor. remove their paid leave, and take away their jobs and benefits. You allow kids to be abused and assaulted by their peers under your watch? You have a fucking responsibility to these kids and what a disgrace of an admin to let this all build up. They deserve the fullest and harshest punishments.

99

reddittrees2 t1_jaaf18c wrote

Looks like the current charge is "conspiracy to commit Aggravated Assault". This is a serious charge and an indictable offense.

She was actually the victim of something called 'Criminal Battery' and the charge should be under the Aggravated Assault Statute, N.J.S.A. 2C:12-1.

In NJ a charge of "Simple Assault" need only require a victim be in "imminent fear of battery". That means a person only need to fear being attacked by the accuse for a Simple Assault charge.

For a charge of 'Criminal Battery' a person must have "made physical contact with the person or an extension of that person (i.e. something he or she was holding, wearing, etc.)."

> N.J.S.A. 2C:12-1(b), to intentionally or recklessly cause bodily harm to another with or without a deadly weapon is considered battery and aggravated assault.

Ag Assault is a second degree crime in NJ and can carry a penalty of 10 years in prison and a $150,000 fine.

This sort of thing is why you will frequently hear the charge of "assault and battery" as the Simple Assault charge precedes the Criminal Battery charge. (Also different states will handle the two charges in different ways and they may appear under different names.)

Relevant Case Law: State v. Battle, State v. Bryant, State v. Holmes.

(Additionally there is a possibility that a charge of 'Strict Liability' may apply. This relates to the actions of one person indirectly and unintentionally causing among other things the death of another person by way of related actions.)

(The actual charging requirements under the relevant statutes are somewhat more complicated and include a long list of qualifying actions and specific situations. This was a the most basic of basic explanations of the legal issues surrounding this awful tragedy.)

To inject a personal opinion: This is by far from the first time this has happened and I do believe legislation needs to be advanced to consider this specific situation and also ones substantially similar under the Strict Liability statute and include updated mitigating or aggravating factors when considering what charge(s) to bring when a student(s) cause another student to end their own life due to the actions of another student(s).

7

lotusvagabond t1_jae4ts9 wrote

I’m sorry it took me so long to see this reply but I very much appreciate you taking the time to elaborate for me everyone on this sub.

I definitely agree that we need change in our legislature to specifically hold these adults more accountable. It baffles me that the ADULTS are rarely held accountable for failing to protect a minor and allowing this to happen in high schools. My own experience was atrocious and when I was attacked the school always blamed me. I’m an adult and healed from that long ago but this story just broke my damn heart. When you work with minors you’re supposed to be held accountable for failing to report concerns for their safety. I just cannot fathom how this is thrown out the door in our high schools.

1

BeamStop23 t1_ja92ql6 wrote

How did the superintendent allow her to get beat up. Seemed like security was swift and the school has no control over the Internet.

−15

xbnm t1_ja9xqbf wrote

If this assault was the first time she was mistreated by these kids, then you're right. But that is essentially never how it happens.

School can expel kids who don't stop torturing kids. They can contact child services and try to figure out why the bullies are lashing out so much, and whether intervention is needed there. School can confiscate phones during the day so that at least on school premises, at least the victim won't have to worry about being recorded.

But the most urgent thing is to separate bullies from their victims long term, hopefully by inconveniencing the bullies, not the victims, in that process. Clearly the school failed at that

7

BeamStop23 t1_jaav861 wrote

  1. You are making a lot of assumptions. The father has never said she's been involved in multiple fights with this group at school if anything the opposite. His beef with the superintendent is that they suspended the bullies but he thinks if they were arrested somehow the student bystanders wouldn't have shared the videos.

  2. There's absolutely no way to ban cellphone use in schools short of having a prison like inspection system

  3. Everyone is or has been bullied. There's absolutely not enough money in the school system to manage what is thousands of teen students personal interactions both in person or online every single day including weekends. A typical prison is 4 to 1 staff. A highschool it's not uncommon to have 30-50 students per staff member. It's just literally impossible to handle. If the bully has developmental/aggression issues and is on a non-standard education (e.g IEP, 504, etc) they cannot be legally expelled. Other than that yes the students can be expelled and if your made-up theory that the same bully regularly assaulted her then they'd have been expelled. Even then she'd have just been bullied online which was actually the father's complaints. It wasn't the fight it was what was going on on social media. Truth is that if your child has a persistent bully, don't rely on the school it's not a daycare, or prison, and it's not a justice system. Seek retribution from law enforcement and a judge, you don't need an attorney to do this.

−1