We've had something of a media furore here the last week or so over Casey Heynes, a 15 year old school kid who fought back against a 12 year old who was bullying him. It hit the headlines because their fight was videoed and posted to YouTube, then taken up by the media - the 12 year old was taunting the 15 year old, grabbing at him, punching him, and the 15 year old responded by picking the younger kid up and body-slamming him into the ground. Video can be seen here. He's since been lauded as a hero for standing up to his bully. Most of the talk-back comments have been about how great this kid is, ditto responses to newspaper articles, etc.

Now - to me, it's an admirable thing to be able to stand up for oneself, but so, so wrong to do it in such a violent manner. The older boy was obviously provoked, and I believe from other reports has been seriously bullied, but battling violence with violence makes him no better than his bully.

What are other people's thoughts?

I'm conflicted, because on one hand I'm not a lover of violence and because the victim is a fair bit older than the bully there could be a big difference in strength (although if the bully is going to pick on someone older he should be prepared for retaliation, tbh). However, on the other hand I kind of wonder if there was anything else as effective as that the victim could have done to stop the bully.

I don't think I'd call him a hero but I also don't think I can condemn what he did.

The kid isn't a hero. He might be brave, because victims of bullying tend to become very good at not responding - either the little turd managed to push him over the edge, in which case I wouldn't hold the older kid accountable really, or he decided to respond this time, in which case he's brave. But that reaction, even if brave, wasn't a good one - looking at the kid staggering around afterwards, you can tell how much force was behind that throw. The fact that the bully was being violent really doesn't, as the cliché goes, justify the victim lowering himself to that level; I'm not too interested in whether or not the bully was hurt, but one thing the victim will have learnt from this experience is that where people ignore your attempts at normal communication, violence gets through. This kid doesn't need that kind of twisted thinking adding to his problems.

If I could speak to him, though - I'd say it was a stupid and cruel thing to do, but I understand why he did it, and what's done is done. Might even convince him to apologise, just to highlight how much of a better person he is than the bully.

But he was being bullied at that moment, if he had initiated it then it would be different, I see it as an act of defense. I don't know if he's a "hero" because fighting back isn't the best option but if someone is grabbing you, punching you, etc then you should be able to defend yourself!

Definitely you should be allowed to defend yourself and I'm glad that the kid in the video did just that. But the force he used was clearly way above the force used against him; that's what I'm conflicted about.

You have no idea what previous bullying encounters might have been like though.

No I don't. I'm just judging on the information we have which is the video.

He's not a hero. I'm all for fighting back, but it should be done to solve the problem at hand, not get a medal for yourself. Fighting back may get you into trouble, but it's better than running to mom and dad to solve your bully problems.

I wouldn't go as far to say he was a hero, simply because if he was, he would have managed to defend himself and stop the bullying in a non-violent way. However, I kind of know how when you are built up with anger you can just explode. It was good he stood up for himself but the he was older and possibly stronger and what he did to the bully went a bit far as the kid after was stumbling around and looked quite dazed. On the other hand, the guy was defending himself and I'm sure the little kid would come back for more and more if something drastic hadn't been done.
I have really mixed feelings about this, as I see violence as a act of either defence or attack and what happened was a bit of both.

I think the term "hero" is often mis-applied. Heroes are people who sacrifice of themselves to help others. This kid isn't helping others in what he did, except maybe incidentally. He is protecting himself, which is something that is generally justified, but he's not a hero.

I don't think he went about it the right way, though. I saw the video and even though I saw the bullying leading up the his response, I still ended up feeling terribly sympathetic toward the bully in the end because the bullied kid overreacted and may have put the bully in the hospital. I felt sick watching the bully hobble around at the end of the video. As much as people think that it's cowardly to go to a teacher or other authority figure in this sort of situation, it is the best way that it could have been handled. The adult would be able to dole out appropriate punishment, which would be a taste of the way our legal system works. In the adult world, if someone hits you, they spend the night (or more, depending) in jail. You are sometimes justified in hitting back in self-defense, but, if you do, you are far more likely to be found in the wrong.

Well, 1)it's kinda true, but 2)this wasn't some situation of the kid trying to communicate to the other boy he ought to do his homework or something else innocuous. He probably did try normal communication-- "stop," "don't," "leave me alone"-- that the bully ignored. When someone repeatedly tries to violate you in some way and shows themselves immune to civilized discourse, then honestly I think violence of some sort is the answer. It should be a last resort, but I don't have very much respect for the capacity of bullies to yield to more civilized resolutions: if they were, they wouldn't be attacking others in the first place.

For one reason or another, some people are screwed up in some way and words aren't going to get through to them in a meaningful way. Maybe some day with therapy and rehabilitation they'll get to that point, but if in the beginning all they respect is a display of force, then it's necessary to speak their "language" to get their attention.

Besides, as this was also a form of self-defense, I doubt Casey's likely to start applying this response to every problem ever, so... slippery slope averted. I'd be more concerned about the lesson he learned that authority figures are willing to pat your on the back after you've been victimized but not actually do anything to protect you in the future. Speaking of,

Casey claims to have filed between 60 and 70 incident reports for being bullied, and the school's official policy seems to be to bend over backwards providing support to the victims but no description of how the bullies themselves are handled. It could have been omitted from the story to give it the right 'spin,' I'll admit, but it doesn't seem that unlikely when extrapolating from how many schools in the U.S., at least, opt to handle bullying.

Or what about the lesson that you should never stand up for yourself, that if someone is victimizing you, you don't have a right to fight it off yourself? That if someone starts hitting you, you should only curl up in a ball and take it until someone else (with the proper "authority") stops it or your attacker just gets tired? Everyone is expected to exercise a certain amount of restraint, of course, and no one would be justified for punching a person who accidentally bumped into them, say, but there are generally exemptions in the law for self-defense. Our legal system also works to sort out who did what to whom and when, and to award punishments appropriately. In schools, unlike the real world, fighting off your attacker will see typically you punished equally, without regard for self-defense and who started things.

ETA: apparently, neither boy suffered serious injuries, for the record.

Last edited by Tempscire : 27th Mar 2011 at 06:28 PM.

While I do understand how people would respond that way, I don't find it heroic. For me heroism is when people are saving or doing something to help others, not themselves. Standing up to people is a brave thing to do, as most bully victims usually don't do it, in scare.

I wouldn't call him a hero, because he wasn't saving anyone else.
To be perfectly honest, things like this happen all the time where I'm from and no one bats an eyelash. If you're dumb enough to taunt and pick on someone bigger than you, you should be the fastest runner in the school. And if you are being bullied, people think its worse if you don't fight back. If you are being bullied, you are expected by family and friends to fight back in some way. Most of those ways do not include involving teachers...

Lol, so true! I'm amazed that no one is scandalised about the bullying, imagine what would have happened if the bully was the bigger, more forceful one. Serves the bully a good lesson. Just because you don't phisically hurt someone doesn't mean your behaviour is OK and should be tolerated indefinitely.

I was bullied myself all through school. I'm a girl, and guys used to do things like that to me. Even in front of teachers, that wouldn't do anything. I finally got to a breaking point, and did something similar to one of the boys messing with me. Needless to say, he was made fun of the rest of the school year b/c a girl beat him up.

I wouldn't call the kid a hero, but to other kids going through simaliar things, i can see how they would see him as a hero. Growing up is hard. When you go though the proper channels to try to get help, and nothing changes, you have to handle it yourself. I bet that little bastard won't mess with him anymore. he got his point across. Maybe not in the best way, but in the only way he knew how.

That kid did the right thing in my opinion. The little guy hit him in the face and there's no doubt the bullying had been going on for a while. There's no point in running to the teacher because it makes you look like a whiner, especially when you admit to being bullied by a much shorter person. Being a kid is hard and sooner or later, you have to learn to stand up for yourself.
What worries me is that there are several people just standing around and watching this whole mess without doing anything. Disgusting.

I can see why people think he's a hero. He stood up for himself! Not many people can do this (myself included) and let their bosses, friends and bullies walk all over them and treat them like something they scraped off the bottom of their shoe. They are forced to suffer in silence, bottle it up inside, spend thousands on professional services and pills or succumb to self-destructive practices because, to lash out and speak their mind would make them 'rank, grunting barbarians'. I'm glad for this kid, that little brat deserved it (he could have got alot worse) and, if more people were afraid of this kind of retaliation from 'poking the hornet's nest', as it were, then the world would be a friendlier place.

Grr, I'm sorry. I just know people in my life that got stepped on and abused like this.

Retaliation and violence can be very self-destructive.

Was this directed at me? I'm not sure but I just wanted to say that yes, I agree, they can be but, for some people, it's an addiction. I don't like to be violent and I try to avoid confrontation as often as possible, however, not everyone is made the same and I know some people that thrive on confrontation and prefer to be surrounded by enemies instead of friends.

Violence and retaliation (and revenge to an extent) can be self-destructive for the majority, but there are people out there that get hyped up on those vices. The rush of adrenaline, the wanton acts of destruction and the power they have over the weak and vulnerable are like drugs to them.

You can see from that video the smaller kid is enjoying himself as he's smacking around a bigger, more docile target. Sure, maybe his friends goaded him into it but he sure didn't give the impression he was remorseful about what he was doing. (But then again, I'm not a psychic so take what I say with a grain of salt.)

Yes, sorry it was. I'm sure it wasn't meant this way, but you mentioned self-destructive behaviour as though violence wasn't self-destructive.

Ohh, I understand. Sorry, I should have been clear. What I meant was cutting, drinking in excess or even turning to drugs... things like that.

What's even worse, they were FILMING that kid bullying the older one! it's clear that the one filming was a friend of the bully. He was laughing along with the bully until the other kid body slammed him. What's the world coming to?? I'm glad he stood up for himself.

It's not a new phenomenon, besides the recording people have always had a terrible fetish in watching fights, Coliseum?

Eh... since when has the action of someone defending himself against bullies been considered heroic?

your not a hero for standing up for yourself :S That doesnt make sense in my opinion. Hes admirable for doing so. But he should have just told someone else like a adult. More mature. Oh well.