I graduated from North Bullitt High School in 2000.
During my last two years I had a relationship w / a guy that went dangerously out of control @ its end.
The problems started mostly outside of school when I ended the relationship, but turned into numerous very public threats & outbursts that teachers & large numbers of students were were live witness to.
At the end of our relationship I still had a few classes w / him, & he would appear very obviously bothered for the entire class, thriving on finding any way to be disruptive & draw attention to how much he despised me. He would do things such as making loud comments in the middle of class, screaming obscenities & storming out of class or throwing books @ the wall & putting his head down. Teachers & classmates seemed shocked, not knowing what to say or do, & being so taken by the outbursts, did nothing.
Eventually rumors began floating around school of him attempting to hire people to assault me after school, or come to my job @ night, or even to my house.
I began filing police reports, but they told me these were the types of things they could do nothing about, only collect a history of reports on in case something did happen. I kept a notebook for months.
I sought help w / counselors, but no one would get involved. Teachers did not want to be witnesses. Students who had seen incidents would take no part either.
I went to try to get an emergency protection order of some sort, but they would give me nothing, saying I had to have been married to him or have his children. I was shocked. No one would help me. Eventually I got my court date, but only because he had filed a bogus harassment suit against me. I was frightened & wanted to be nowhere near him. This suit was totally false. Nonetheless, I took this as my chance to get someone to listen.
At court, they dropped the case against me & ordered him to stay away from me. The school counselors were there, & I found out they had come to support him!
Back in school, he continued to harrass me through other means, through sending messages by other students, notes, etc. When I went to the counselors for help, they told me they were tired of dealing with the problem & gave ME an ultimatum. If either myself or my former boyfriend reported anything further, NEITHER of us would walk at Graduation.
Basically, they wanted me & my problems to disappear. So that meant for me that I couldn't do anything to make him mad because he would make a false complaint. But it also meant that I had to keep my mouth shut about anything he did to me, completely destroying any witnesses & credibility should I have to file another police report.
The staff & counselors @ this school didn't take anything that was going on seriously. They didn't consider that this guy could have brought a gun, a knife, anything to school & had me killed. They wanted to look the other way @ his outbursts. They denied his potential for violence.
Those two years left me scarred for a long time after, and ruined much of what should have been a fun, memorable time in my youth. I had absolutely no support & spent my days looking over my shoulder in a place where I should have been safe!
I am outraged @ the lack of responsibility & lack of moral obligation. Maybe when a gunman comes shooting, or an ex-girlfriend gets fed up & goes on a rampage they'll wake up. For now, they're just a bunch of blind, cowardly idiots, and a disappointment to society.
They witnessed an abusive young individual trying to take on a victim & they should have seen that as an obligation & opportunity to stop that kind of potential cycle of violence. But instead, everyone turned away.
It's been said that the most dangerous place you can be is in a crowd - because everyone says, "Somebody else will do something. Somebody else will help."
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