“This is my daughter, and I will kill the (expletive) who fought her.”

This threat did not come from the mouth of a student; it came from an infuriated parent by the name of James Jones who decided that intimidating students would be the only way to stop them from bullying his daughter.  

The outrage that Jones portrayed came from the pain he felt for his daughter when she would come home crying after being harassed by other students at her school in Florida.

Jone’s daughter, who suffers from Cerebral palsy, or CP, was just admitted to her new school and suffered greatly because of the harassment she was forced to endure. Her daily routine found harsh words, abusive actions, and degrading taunts. Allegedly, the bullies even threw an open condom at her.

Jones did contact school administrators, but they failed to do anything about the acts that would later land his daughter on suicide watch at a local hospital.

Deciding enough was enough, he took matters into his own hands by walking onto the school bus.

He threatened not only the students (who were laughing) but also the bus driver.

Some are saying Jones is a hero because he stood up for his daughter and showed the world how much bullying  truly affects people, other say he may have taken things to far, and not so much a hero as insane.

This should be a wake up call, not only to Florida’s education system, but to school boards everywhere, showing that if no one does anything about the matter, others will.

Jones is not completely in the wrong. The only truth known to him was that his daughter was being taunted by 7th grade boys, and that her life was at risk; this truth would make any father jump into action.

Bullying hurts and does lead to suicidal acts. Schools are no safe haven, and faculty often makes only a minimal effort to control these horrendous acts of the teenage mind. Jones was merely reacting to the lack of support and discipline the administrators failed to administer among their students.

The kids exhibit no sympathy by engaging in laughter while the father scrambles to explain what such acts have driven him and his daughter to. This is a serious matter and should be treated as so.

Maybe he did take it too far, and the threats on the bus driver were unnecessary, but America needs to see this kind of crazy in order to do something about it.

Think about it: things in this world only budge when drastic measures are taken. Bloody revolutions were needed to make change in many countries, an innocent “please” just would not do. Numerous avoidable car accidents were needed to get the “click it or ticket” law passed. For many of us, grounding is needed in order to learn a lesson that should have been common sense.

Warnings simply do not get the job done. Since this has been our proven routine, what will it take for bullying to become nonexistent? A murder? A suicide? Well, it looks like a death threat should suffice.

Photo: Celeste Lopez voices her opinion on bullying and the drastic measure taken by one father to stop it. Photo by Trenton Pham of The Foothill Dragon Press.