Nowhere in that article does it say that he is to be tried as an adult.
This is a tragedy and, personally, I think all charges should be dismissed and the kid should go for mandatory counseling to help him get through the obvious emotional trauma he was subjected to.
I was bullied as a kid in elementary school in the early '80s because the kids found out that my parents were getting divorced which was a big deal back then. For months, I was chased home after school by older kids. I was forced to run through a series of back yards to avoid them. Occasionally they would catch me and beat the shit out of me.
I told my parents eventually and they told the school. The schools position was "boys will be boys and your kid needs to learn how to adapt." Adapt I did. A a few days later, I decided I had enough and walked home on the street like everyone else and they they were. All 5 assholes coming for me. I spied a rather large but wieldable tree limb that was put on the street for pickup, and as my aggressors approached, I picked it up and told them to leave me alone and they just laughed and came at me. I proceeded to mercilessly dispense justice with the tree limb. The net result was two kids in the hospital one with a broken wrist and another with a major concussion and the rest had minor injuries.
Now here is the fucked up part. These kids parents were notified by both my mother and the school about the situation prior to this. This made no difference. A group of "concerned" parents lobbied to have me expelled from school though the incident occurred off school property. The juvenile division of the local police charged me with aggravated assault. I was labeled a troublemaker and they blamed my parents because their marriage was failing. They blamed me for being violent and unreasonable and that I should have tried to talk to my tormentors which was not possible. They said I went to far defending myself from 5 kids who all lied and said I just attacked them out of nowhere.
Eventually, the chaos died down and I was allowed to stay at school. My parents had to pay for the two kid's hospital bills which induced my Irish, patriarchal, violent father to beat the ever loving shit out of me multiple times over the course of several weeks and the police dropped the charges and forced me to see a social worker at school for the remainder of 4th grade.
What pisses me off is that, today, it seems the favor is still with the bully. When the victim finally stands up for him or her self, they get labeled as troubled miscreant even when they try to do the right thing.. This even with all the national attention it has gotten. So sad. It is as if we have become a bully culture.
