Saturday, April 26, 2014

156.2 - Update: charges dropped for boy who taped being bullied

Update: charges dropped for boy who taped being bullied

Last week I gave the clown award to the school, cops, and court of McDonald, Pennsylvania over the case of fifteen-year-old Christian Stanfield, who recorded the bullying he was being subjected to in his math class. When the evidence was presented to the school, he was forced to destroy the recording, was threatened with a charge of felony wiretapping, charged with disorderly conduct, and convicted and fined.

The update is a happy ending of a sort: The Allegheny County district attorney's office has said it will withdraw that count at a hearing April 29, when the case gets to a court with which the DA's office deals.

Mike Manko, speaking for the DA's office, said "The behavior does not rise to the level of a citation." That is, Christian never should have been charged in the first place.

It gets better: "No one who is authorized to give advice on wiretap or school violation issues was contacted in our office by the school district or South Fayette police." That is, both the school and the cop proceeded without bothering to check if this was proper or not.

And better still: The DA's office has made "multiple attempts" to contact the cop who issued the citation. They have not heard from him.

Maybe he's afraid he'll get picked on.

Oh, why just a happy ending of a sort? So far, still nothing has happened either to the bullies or anyone at the school.

Sources cited in links:
http://whoviating.blogspot.com/2014/04/1556-clown-award-south-fayette-high.html
http://www.post-gazette.com/local/west/2014/04/16/Charge-against-student-who-recorded-alleged-bullying-will-be-dropped/stories/201404160165

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