<p>I have already distinguished stalking from verbal bullying. Clearly it is easily distinguishable from domestic abuse. If your kid comes home and says, “I am going to kill myself if Bobby tells me one more time that Justin Bieber can’t sing.” Your kid worships Justin Bieber and you really see that the taunting is causing depression and mood changes. Surely you can see how crafting a law to cover that will result in some vague, subjective, “sometimes it’s a crime, sometimes it not” law.</p>
<p>Yeah well. I think that’s an interesting hypothetical, Cartera, but the girls who are killing themselves aren’t doing it because someone insulted a pop star.</p>
<p>Laws have to be written to include interesting hypotheticals. If the “what ifs” aren’t considered, then there can be lots of unintended consequences. They have to be written so that they are enforceable and so that the perpetrator knows what is criminal and what is not. Hard cases make bad laws.</p>
<p>Yeah, I think there is thematically a level of sexual harassment to most of these cases. </p>
<p>I think it is provable under the laws we already have. If a group of five people at the office continually harrassed you, we have laws for that already. </p>
<p>I think we need to stop labeling it bullying and call it what it is.</p>
<p>Sexual harassment is typically a civil case, not criminal. Criminal harassment is often defined as included the type of threat that would reasonably cause someone to fear for his/her safety. When you examine bullying, it is harder to apply the reasonable standard.</p>
<p>Okay. I suppose we need new laws then.</p>
<p>Trailblazers Academy doesn’t sounds so great according to GreatSchools; they got a 1/10. </p>
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<p>That doesnt sound credible at all. No wonder the parents felt they had no choice but to go to the police.</p>
<p>So it was a public charter school, not a private school–a distinction you’d think the local press could have figured out, for heavens sake. Though I still don’t understand why suspension wasn’t the first step. Trailblazers is basically a school for “problem” kids who aren’t succeeding/fitting in at the regular middle schools, so I would expect that this isn’t the first disciplinary issue they’ve had to deal with. But knowing the city, its possible the whole affair may have been a case of gang rivalries spilling into the classroom, which would explain the feeling that police involvement was in order.</p>
<p>@cartera45, you’ll be interested to know that the definition of disorderly conduct under Connecticut law (a misdemeanor, and the basis of the arrest here) includes this incredibly vague language: “A person is guilty of disorderly conduct when, with intent to cause inconvenience, annoyance or alarm…such person…by offensive or disorderly conduct, annoys or interferes with another person…” In other words, if you merely intend to annoy someone and then do annoy the person with “offensive” conduct (whatever the heck that is), you can be arrested. So if you’re driving in the state and someone cuts you off, whatever you do, don’t stick your head out the window and call him an idiot!</p>
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<p>Hmmm, do you mean to say that it is fulfilling the role of a reform or continuation school for students who got expelled from other schools, often for disciplinary problems?</p>
<p>You can see the explanation on the school’s website–<a href=“http://trailblazersacademy.org/About.html”>http://trailblazersacademy.org/About.html</a>. I’m not sure how much of that language is euphemistic, but it is a voluntary placement, certainly not a “reform school”. I suspect kids end up there for a wide variety of reasons, and at least some must have had behavioral issues, since one of the school’s goals is to “build critical social and emotional skills”. Stamford is a very diverse city with a wide range of socio-economic levels. It’s hardly unheard of for the police to be called to one of the public schools to break up a physical fight. But until now I’ve never heard of the police being called in for a bullying issue.</p>