This article was originally published on Examiner.com on June 21, 2012.
Shameful. Horrifying. Ruthless.
These are some of the words which come to mind after watching the viral video of 68-year-old Karen Klein being viciously and continuously verbally attacked by a group of pre-teens surrounding her on a school bus which she rides as a monitor. The video is available on the left hand side of this article.
She used to be a bus driver for twenty years, and has been riding along for the last three. Her job is to keep the peace on the bus, but how is that possible when students are allowed to behave in such a way?
“Fatass!” they shout. Karen takes off her glasses, and they are dense with moisture. The teens ask Karen if she is sweating because she is so fat. She says no, “I was crying.” To which the teens reply to query if she is crying because “she misses her box of Twinkies.” One of the bullies even went so far as to say she didn’t have a family because “they all committed suicide.” While they all did not, this grandmother of 8 did lose a son to suicide over a decade ago.
This entire 10 minute episode will haunt these young people forever, and it will follow them their entire lives. The teens on the video are named as follows: Luis R****, Wesley H***, Brandon T***, Joshua S****. I am under no obligation to censor the names of the young individuals, but I will not perpetuate their own behavior.
Many are outraged at the behavior of the adolescents in question, and applaud the willpower of Klein to be able to withstand such a barrage for a prolonged period of time without even raising her voice, despite tears running down her face.
There is a national outcry over this, and there is now a fund in place to help raise money so Karen can retire and enjoy her golden years. Originally the fund started out to raise $5,000 but has now as of this writing accumulated a staggering $140,000. This will surely help send Karen on the “vacation of a lifetime” that the fund is being raised for.
Karen has a message for the families of the boys, “I’m sorry that your sons acted the way they did. I’m sure they don’t act that way at home, but you never know what they’re going to do when they’re out of the house.”
Note: I personally sent Karen $40 as well, which is likely more than I will make for the writing of this article. C’est la vie.