This one is deep. Watch:

From the Orlando Sentinel:

Seminole County sheriff's deputies on Thursday [Sept. 16] arrested [James] Jones on charges of disorderly conduct and disturbing a school function stemming from the incident [above].

Jones, 42, bailed out of the Seminole County Jail later that day after paying a $2,000 bond. A judge ordered that he cannot contact the bus driver and must stay 100 feet away from all Seminole County school buses.

Deputies said that on the morning of Sept. 3, Jones boarded the school bus headed to Greenwood Lakes Middle School at W. Airport Boulevard and Bungalow Avenue in Sanford [FL] because several boys on the bus were allegedly bullying his daughter.

"He believed in his mind, he had to take action against the children on the school bus before they hurt his little girl," according to the arrest report.

Jones told deputies the boys had placed an open condom on his daughter's head, smacked her on the back of the head, twisted her ear and shouted rude comments at her, the Seminole County Sheriff's Office report shows.

Video surveillance taken inside the school bus shows Jones' daughter pointing at the students accused of harassing her. Jones walks up the aisle to the student's seat, points at him and threatens to kill him and others who bully his daughter.

Some of the children on the school bus watch quietly as Jones yells profanities and gestures wildly, while others giggle at the man's reactions.

Jones is then seen walking toward the bus driver and threatening to kill him as well before he steps off the bus.

He told deputies he has complained to school administrators in the past, but nothing had been done about the alleged attacks on his daughter.

Now his daughter is afraid to ride the bus to school, Jones said.

What would you have done in this situation? My thoughts after the stretch.

STRETCH...

For the record, I am NOT a parent; I do, though, have a niece and a nephew of middle school age — 11 and 12 years old, respectively — that I love as if they were my own children, so I understand the protective nature of a father.

If this were my niece being tormented, I can't honestly say that I would not at least be compelled to do the same thing Jones did.

When I think of how Jones probably found out about this latest round of bullying his baby girl was being subjected to, I can't help but envision a man watching and listening to his beloved, cerebral palsy-inflicted daughter cry her eyes out because of the way some of her classmates have been treating her on the schoolbus. A man whose rage grows more and more as his little girl details for him the cruel way the other kids have been treating her; listening intently as she describes how they throw things at her, put open condoms on her, slap her in the head, twist her ears and call her names. A man who finds out that the children making his precious daughter's life a living hell are boys. A man who has probably already heard some of these stories and who claims to have already reported them to school officials, who apparently ignored them. A man who now has to send his sick little girl back to school on that same bus with those same little boys who probably plan on doing more of the same mean-spirited things to his baby. A man who thinks the bus driver, a grown man, should have done something to defend her. Basically, a man at the end of his rope.

This man was gonna put a stop to this bullshit by any means necessary — ANY means necessary, even if it meant personally threatening the lives of the children involved. Since the school wouldn't do anything, Jones surely felt it was duty as a father to do something to protect his helpless child. Since he couldn't go to school with her and act as her personal bodyguard, he felt his next best course of action was to strike the fear of God into her tormentors.

This I fully understand. The man was worried about his child and took it upon himself to protect her. I don't know a man who wouldn't do that.

On the flip side, I also think about the parents of the children on the receiving end of James' threats, in this case represented by the mother interviewed for this story who, understandably, says she's "pissed" at what happened on her son Alonzo's bus ride.

If my nephew were to come home saying that some crazy man had stormed onto his bus and threatened to kill him and everybody on it, I'd be pissed, too. I can imagine a parent's initial reaction being something like, "Who the fuck does this man think he is talking to my child like that?" Regardless of what they've done, you don't want anybody coming at your children that way.

But I would also take issue with my child — probably after making several phone calls in attempts to find out who/where this crazy man is so I could begin planning ways to have him fuckin' killed — and would want to know why someone would even be directing such threats towards him in the first place. "Did you do something to this man?" I would ask. After finding out what my child allegedly did to some poor disabled girl on his schoolbus, please believe that lil' nigga's ass would be so sore after I whooped it that he wouldn't be able to use it for about a month. Alonzo looked all sweet and innocent in the news story above, but we all know that kids often act differently in front of Mama than they do when around their friends. (I'm not accusing the kid of anything, I'm just sayin'...) Don't let the babyface fool ya.

(Remember Kenard from The Wire? That boy looked totally innocent until he opened his mouth and nothin' but filth fell out. Of course, that's only a TV show; but if you think that there aren't kids who really talk and act that way, you're playin' yourself. But I digress.)

Still, the fact of the matter is that you can't just jump on a schoolbus and threaten to "fuck up" the bus driver "and everybody on this muthafucka." While I understand and applaud his motives for doing so — along with the things already mentioned, children could DIE as a result of bullying, as evidenced by numerous school shootings and the numerous kids who've committed suicide because of bullies — Mr. Jones should probably expect some serious legal backlash for his momentary, passion-fueled lapse in judgment (at least as serious as "disorderly conduct" and "disturbing a school function" charges can get). I just hope the courts sympathize with the man, as he was certainly under extreme stress and is clearly remorseful.

Again I ask, what would you have done? How would you handle such a situation?





Supplier: Orlando Sentinel