A Texas man was arrested after allegedly slapping a 12-year-old boy who he believed was bullying his stepdaughter.
James Olander Peace, 37, of Deer Park was charged with felony injury to a child.
Investigators said that nearby surveillance video showed Peace approaching the boy, shouting at him, then slapping him.
“He was slapped across the face with an open hand, had red marks and swelling to his cheek and upper jaw,” Deer Park Police Lt. Chris Brown told KTRK.
According to court records, Peace then told the boy not to tell the police or he’d beat him up.
Peace’s wife said that her husband was sticking up for her daughter after the boy, her classmate, and a friend bullied her while she was walking home from school.
“Saying that her body was ugly, said that she was a transvestite, started throwing ice cream at her and then they picked up the rocks,” Peace’s wife said.
Her daughter called her parents and asked for a ride home.
Peace picked up his daughter and spotted the boy and his friend walking while driving back to his house.
Peace’s wife admitted her husband “took it too far.”
Angry dad slaps stepdaughter’s 12-year-old bully: police https://t.co/iCxdEae69f pic.twitter.com/zYZHUbU68d
— ABC13 Houston (@abc13houston) February 19, 2019
According to KHOU, the victim, who was not named, told his teacher the day after he was slapped that he was afraid to go to lunch because of what happened.
The teacher called the police.
Officers who went to the Peace house said that the stepdaughter admitted she witnessed her stepfather slap the boy. She told the officers that the boys had been bullying her at school.
Peace confessed after officers told him they had surveillance footage of the slap.
10-Year-Old Commits Suicide, Mother Says He Was Bullied
A Kentucky mother said that her 10-year-old son was bullied after finding him dead in a suspected suicide.
Seven Bridges, who loved to dress up as superheroes, was dead when Tami Charles found him in their Lousiville house.
Charles said that Seven, a fifth-grader at Kerrick Elementary School, was tormented by bullies. They targeted him because he was born with a medical problem that required him to carry a colostomy bag. Multiple surgeries didn’t completely solve the problem.
“We need to talk about this bullying,” Charles told WBTV. “Talk about this pain. I want people to do that with their children.”
A Jefferson County Public Schools System spokeswoman said that the district will investigate the bullying allegations.
But a relative who launched a GoFundMe fundraiser on behalf of the family said that Seven’s parents had urged the district and school to look into bullying issues for the past six months, and the results were apparently not enough.
“His death is an example of what can happen when we choose not to take the issue of Bullying seriously,” wrote Charles.
Bullying in the US
According to Stop Bullying, a government group, 28 percent of students in the United States have experienced bullying while 70 percent of youth have seen bullying at school. Some 30 percent of respondents admitted to bullying in surveys, the group said.
In one study, about 49 percent of students in grades 4 through 12 reported being bullied by other students at school at least once during the previous month.
“The most common types of bullying are verbal and social. Physical bullying happens less often. Cyberbullying happens the least frequently,” the group stated. “Most bullying takes place in school, outside on school grounds, and on the school bus. Bullying also happens wherever kids gather in the community. And of course, cyberbullying occurs on cell phones and online.”
The relationship between bullying and suicide is complex, according to Stop Bullying. While the vast majority of young people who are bullied don’t commit or attempt suicide, Stop Bullying said, “research indicates that persistent bullying can lead to or worsen feelings of isolation, rejection, exclusion, and despair, as well as depression and anxiety, which can contribute to suicidal behavior.”
