Chelisa Grimes Sent Son to School With Stun Gun To Confront Bullies

[Whisper]

Chelisa Grimes and her son, 17-year-old Darnell Young

An Indiana mother who sent her gay son to school with a stun gun after administrators apparently didn't do enough to stop the bullying against him said she would do it again -- even though the teen now faces expulsion.

"I do not promote violence -- not at all -- but what is a parent to do when she has done everything that she felt she was supposed to do ... at the school?" the mother, Chelisa Grimes, told CNN's Don Lemon on Sunday. "I did feel like there was nothing else left for me to do, but protect my child."

The school district held an expulsion hearing last week but no decision has been announced.
Grimes sent her son, Darnell "Dynasty" Young, to Arsenal Technical High School in Indianapolis with the stun gun after he said he was taunted and bullied for months. Bullied gay teen uses stun gun at school

"I brought the stun gun 'cause I wasn't safe," the 17-year-old said.

After six other students surrounded him at school on April 16, calling him names and threatening to beat him up, Young pulled the stun gun from his backpack. He raised it in the air, setting off an electric charge, and sending the group scurrying, Young said.

Unlike a Taser, which fire barbs attached to long wires at a target, a stun gun has to be near or pressed against a person to shock them.

"I got kicked out of school for me bringing the weapon to school, but I honestly don't think that that was fair," Young said. "I didn't use it on nobody. ... All I did was raise it up in the air and went back to my class."

[...]
School officials are investigating the incident, but none of the students who allegedly surrounded Young has been positively identified.

Young is known as a flamboyant dresser and Larry Yarrell, the Tech principal, said school staff had been trying to get him to "tone down" his accessories.

"If you wear female apparel, then kids are kids and they're going to say whatever it is that they want to say," Yarrell told The Star. "Because you want to be different and because you choose to wear female apparel, it may happen. In the idealistic society, it shouldn't matter. People should be able to wear what they want to wear."[...]
Grimes contends that school officials haven't done enough to protect all students on campus.

"I think that the self-protection device is what's making the news, but the big picture is that my child is not the only one who does not feel safe at our school," she said.

It a common complaint among lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender students.

A 2009 survey of 7,261 middle and high school students found that nearly nine out of 10 LGBT students had experienced harassment at school over the previous year and nearly two-thirds felt unsafe because of their sexual orientation.

Young said rumors around campus suggested he was "doing nasty stuff" with teachers. The rumors took their toll.

"I was at my wit's end. I didn't know what to do and I thought about suicide," Young said. "I hate saying that word because God blessed me with this life. I love life. I love my education. I would never ... but this bullying got so bad that I thought about that."

http://www.ktla.com/news/landing/ktl...,3140401.story

[Ninja0980]

Welcome to the reality that many LGBT youth or those viewed as such face every single day in our schools,relentless bullying by students and schools that won't do anything to stop it and in many cases such as this one,blame the victims because they refuse to hide who they are.

[spifftastic]

Thank god people grow the fuck up after high school and mind their own business. Gays were terrorized in my high school, but even after I went to a VERY conservative, homophobic college for a couple years they were no longer attacked, just a bit avoided sometimes. Although to a high school student the last one or two years probably seemed like an eternity, the mother should've known that he was almost in the clear and he should've just learned to deal with it for the brief time left that he had to deal with these idiots rather than launching his own idiotic attack. He could've done it off of school grounds and most likely gotten away with it. Never a reason to bring a weapon to school.

[moonlilly1981]

This kid was terrorized by his classmates. Six students ganged up on him, the only reason they left, because he had a weapon. Instead of telling him to "tone down" his style the master minds should have been expelled. No if, ands, or buts about it.

I recently had a problem with my six year old son this school year and a bully. Not just the normal picking on him and calling him names. My son was stabbed in his classroom with a pencil by this child. Not an accidental poke, stabbed in his rib cage. Thankfully my son only received a small puncture wound because of the amount of shirts he was wearing. The principal called me that night and we spoke for an hour. The child was suspended one day, the next day he came back to school he attacked my son with scissors. When I was pulled into the principals office that day at pick up time I told her point blank, either you remove the child from my son's classroom, or if it happens again my boy has my permission to stomp this little twit and if he doesn't I will be contacting the police and pressing charges. The boy was removed from my son's classroom that day.

Yes this boy is openly gay. That gives no one the right to gang up on him. You can't remove high schoolers from a classroom to solve a problem. They will still find him. He has just as much right to a safe education as the other children. My philosophy is try to do the right thing first. Go to the school and talk it out. Try to solve the problem with them first. If that doesn't work take matters into your own hands. He couldn't fight these kids one on one. Six to one is not fair odds.

[Dakota Valkyrie]

Kids get bullied for all sorts of reasons. You don't need to be LGBT to get bullied.

What sort of parent thinks the answer to bullying is to send their kid to school with an illegal weapon? (Indiana law says you must be 18 to posses a stun gun.) If all else is seeming to fail, I'd switch my kid's school before I'd try that tactic.

[AngelFire]

I wouldn't arm my child with weapons. I would go to school first and if that failed, remove my kid. I don't see the need to play games with my child's safety. In High School they don't need to be in the same classroom, they will find one another regardless. So I would immediatley remove my kid from school, and problem solved....for now.

[62julietandvoid]

I was going to say she should have started out with a wiffle bat or something (visioned a younger kid for w/e reason) but this is about teens. They should be thankful it wasn't a cattle prod. Or a gun.