My heart breaks today for Brahim Caldwell.
He's the 10-year-old child who rocketed to fame yesterday for something he never wanted. He stars in a video that shows him being bullied and repeatedly slapped while riding on his Chester Upland School District bus.
The video was all over Facebook yesterday. It's hard to watch. Even worse is the knowledge from Brahim and his mother that this has been going on for weeks.
We reached out to his mom, Rhonda McMillan Fayall, after we saw the video. His story is here.
We also reached out to the Chester Upland School District to see what they were doing about it.
Late in the day, we finally got some answers.
The student shown in the video slapping Brahim is being suspended. Brahim will get his wish for a transfer to another school, one that will mean using a different bus. An investigation into the incident continues, including what the bus driver and an aide did - or did not do - to intervene in the situation.
The district offered this statement:
"Bullying is cruel, unacceptable conduct, and we will not tolerate it anywhere within the jurisdiction of the district schools, including - by extension - our school buses," said Superintendent Gregory Shannon.
We don't normally identify youths involved in these kinds of incidents. We are not identifying the student who was slapping Brahim.
We talked to Rhonda McMillan Fayall and took a photo of her and her son in an attempt to bring this story to light.
Bullying, both physical assaults and actions on social media, is becoming a huge issue among young people. No one knows that better than Claudio Cerullo. He's the founder of the non-profit group Teach Anti-Bullying Inc., which works with local school districts to address the issue. Yesterday he also met with Brahim and his mother.
I am glad that Brahim is getting help.
But I fear for all the similar instances we never hear about.
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