Moments ago, we posted the first interview with bullied teen, Casey Heynes. Well, it turns out that Casey’s bully also gave an interview to show his side of the story.
12-year-old Ritchard Gale sat down with Australian show “Today Tonight”, saying that with those 40-seconds of video, he has now turned into the bad guy when he shouldn’t be. He says that what the camera failed to capture was Casey had provoked him. Ritchard says:
“He was like ‘go to class’ and calling me an idiot and stuff. And I didn’t like it. And he pushed me and stuff and ran down to the front of the office and that’s when I hit him,”
When asked what he’d like to say to Casey, the 12-year-old said he did not realise that Casey had been a victim of bullying.
“Sorry that I picked on him and I didn’t know that he’d been bullied his whole school life,”
But the question is…does that, among many other answers, sound genuine, or is this just a boy and family taking advantage of the media spotlight and trying to clear their name? Check out the interview below, and let us know what you think!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hRHawhc53zg&feature=watch_response
The video speaks for itself. You can clearly hear the laughter and the conversation of the group in regards to “catching this on tape”.
Hopefully, Richard has learned his lesson. If you hit someone – they may stand up for themselves.
I am upset with the school system for suspending both boys. Casey was acting in self-defense. This sends a message to other kids that if you’re bullied and stand up for yourself, you’ll get in trouble.
Since most kids that get bullied are usually reserved, well behaved – they may think twice about defending themselves if they know they’ll also get into trouble. This will perpetuate the bullying cycle because most bullies don’t care if they get reprimanded. They only learn their lesson when the victim defends themself.