Dad punches "teacher": Right or Wrong?

[TransformX]

You called him on being a saint, just providing some reference to the effect that he doesn't think he's holier than thou. Opinionated, yes, but certainly not the former.

Mind you, I'm not taking sides here, I'd have punched the guy too, just in the parking lot after school. The fact is though, is that all the arguments taking place have had nada to do with the facts of the case. Too little information being used to forumulate judgement calls. Yes, I'm just as guilty on that. The problem comes in when the facts we do have start twisting into something else: innappropriate sexual conduct becomes rape, etc. And sorry, but the analogies being made throughout just don't pertain (that's a multi-person finger pointing).

Actually, I'm taking it to the lowest common denominator(?) someone hurted my child, I react and in some occurences (like a heated argument or my child crying or in agony) could be violently. Wrong? probably yes, but then again, I'd still do it.

[Dilitante1]

This sounds like a case of trying to teach a proverbial pig to sing. It wastes your time and annoys the pig.


Shame we cant compare apples to apples in this discussion.

As a father I will listen to my kid first
Then I will look for answers from other side
If I am not happy, pressure put on the situation from different directions gets better results then the whole barbarian reaction of violence.

I CAN say this as both of of daughters have been in horrible situations and the perps in both situations are alive and unharmed as I was warned by authorities to let the system deal with it or you could lose the girls..... stressfull yes?

[TransformX]

I CAN say this as both of of daughters have been in horrible situations and the perps in both situations are alive and unharmed as I was warned by authorities to let the system deal with it or you could lose the girls..... stressfull yes?

Ouch.. Especially when you can't always trust the system to do their job right..

[KvHagedorn]

Interesting that the girl still stands by her story.. enough so that she escalated the situation at peril to herself by making a statement to the sheriff's department. Having in real life dealt with brain-dead school administrations that just didn't give a damn about kids, I could imagine them just covering their asses in this case. Their spokesman did seem to think he was empowered to decide guilt or innocence in this matter, even though it was beyond his purview. If the girl has made a formal complaint to the law, as she apparently has, they will quickly find that they have no power to decide a criminal case just because it happened on school grounds. The father did what he did because he was dissatisfied by the administration's actions in the first place.. he did attempt to use the proper channels first, seeking out the TA only after becoming dissatisfied. The reporter writing this blurb relates it thus: "When he saw that the man was not in the meeting, he asked his daughter to take him to the classroom." Alright, boys and girls, does this sentence tell the whole story about why he went off looking for the guy? Again, according to the report, the assault occurred after "a verbal exchange became heated." Since this is the only description we have of the encounter, it can be interpreted in any way our imaginations lead us. Was the father right or wrong? Depends. We just don't know enough from a half page news article which was written by a human being who was not there to witness it.. a human being like everyone else here commenting without knowing in any serious details the particulars of this case.

I say if the girl stands by her story this far, she deserves her day in court. One hopes she will get a good lawyer, whatever the family's financial position might be (and though someone made a comment that the dad was rich because he was a business owner, that's certainly not always the case. In the U.S. there are plenty of small businessmen who don't make a lot of money.) If the administration was at fault here, I really hope they are convicted as accessories.. but for now, we don't know.

I can understand the frustration of living in a society where the guilty are not punished and the authorities really only clamp down when their authority is challenged.. and then it is the justice-seekers that get clamped down upon. I can also understand tie viewpoint of one who has been falsely accused in the past, so certainly I can understand both TX's and Sasq's biases here, but think about this.. those biases would probably disqualify BOTH of you from sitting on the jury in this case. There's a reason jurors are not allowed to read news reports of the case they are trying.. as said before, the phrase "a verbal exchange became heated" is not a sworn testimony by a witness. It is a reporter's paraphrase of something he heard, and is absolutely phrased according to the reporter's own biases.

[Wombat]

Interesting that the girl still stands by her story.. enough so that she escalated the situation at peril to herself by making a statement to the sheriff's department.

Not really interesting. She's still got her foster father wrapped, and she's trying to avoid the trouble (with the school, with the police, with her hot-headed father) that admitting she's lied will get her in to. Some of her accomplices have already cracked, and the video gives the accused TA a solid aliby.

Having in real life dealt with brain-dead school administrations that just didn't give a damn about kids, I could imagine them just covering their asses in this case. Their spokesman did seem to think he was empowered to decide guilt or innocence in this matter, even though it was beyond his purview. If the girl has made a formal complaint to the law, as she apparently has, they will quickly find that they have no power to decide a criminal case just because it happened on school grounds.[/quote] But the way things look now, the smart money is on the girl making it up. I can't blame them for supporting their teacher when it looks like he's cleared.

Was the father right or wrong? Depends.

Hell no it doesn't. We know he sought out the teacher. That's stupid and wrong. Get the cops involved, don't seek the man out like that, and slug him. Wrong. Wrong. Not depends.

I say if the girl stands by her story this far, she deserves her day in court. One hopes she will get a good lawyer, whatever the family's financial position might be (and though someone made a comment that the dad was rich because he was a business owner, that's certainly not always the case. In the U.S. there are plenty of small businessmen who don't make a lot of money.) If the administration was at fault here, I really hope they are convicted as accessories.. but for now, we don't know.

She just might get her day in court. For filing a false police report, slander, and plenty of other things.

http://www.centredaily.com/mld/centredaily/news/nation/13722740.htm

[Wombat]

Looks like the father still won't suck it up and do the right thing. He's now suing the school district.

http://www.wral.com/news/7120408/detail.html

I can't tell if he's stupid, greedy, or both.

[KRSESQ]

He certainly doesn't look like the brightest bulb on the string. Probably thinks this is his ticket out of the mobile-home park.

(Not that there's anything wrong with mobile-home parks .)

Kevin

[az]

He's probably just wound around his daughter's little finger. Not that that is an excuse or makes it better.

[Brian Ellis]

More likely, some shyster has encouraged him to sue, after a good retainer.