BELIEVE IT OR NOT!

Student is beaten and no one steps in to help
Posted By: Laura Casella lcasella@astral.com · 4/17/2012 8:39:00 AM

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A student badly beaten by a classmate at a high school in Hudson last week is recovering but lots of people are disappointed that dozens of bystanders did nothing to stop the attack. 

17-year-old Marshall Brooks was beaten by another student outside of Westwood Senior High School. He was severely injured, and almost lost his eye sight in one eye.

But while the fight was going on, none of the 50 or so other students witnessing the attack did anything to stop it. Instead, many of them pulled out their cell phones to record it.

Suanne Stein Day is chairperson of the Lester B. Pearson School Board. She says the attack is tragic, but can’t say she is entirely surprised that no one intervened.

"They may have been afraid to step in," she says, "as for them pulling out their cell phones, well that seems to be the trend these days."

That is why it is important to educate children, she says, about being responsible with technology.

"We need to understand why their first reaction was to pull out their phones," says Day.

As for the student who did the beating, he’s been charged with assault and has been suspended from the school for the rest of the academic year.