Down around Houston, earlier this month, sixteen-year-old Jayron Martin was beaten with a metal pipe by one of his classmates while eight others stood around and watched. Martin says it's because he's gay. Bad enough, right?
But let's toss a little apathy into the mix. What makes this hate crime worse is that Martin knew it was coming, and had begged two principals at his school and his bus driver for help before he was hit repeatedly with the pipe. Help never came, at least not from the school or the driver; it took a neighbor with a shotgun to stop the beating.
Hours before the beating, a friend of Jayron Martin's warned him that a group of students was out to get him, and so Martin went to school administrators, who took a written statement from him. They told him they would call him to the office; they never did. Nor did they call his mother and tell her of the planned attack.
On the bus ride home, Martin noticed the group of students on the same bus; he told the driver what he'd heard, but the driver neither said nor did anything. When Martin got off the bus, the gang of boys began chasing him into one of his neighbors' home where one of the teenagers beat him for seven minutes with a pipe. The attack didn’t stop until the man who lives in that home came downstairs with his shotgun.
Harris County Sheriff’s Office deputies arrested the 16-year-old who beat Martin, and that boy is facing aggravated assault charges; no other arrests have been made at this time. The school district is pursuing its own investigation, and has already placed the bus driver on paid administrative leave. They are reviewing the actions of an assistant principal.
Aren't the teachers and administrators of our schools supposed to protect our children? Shouldn't a bus driver take the word of a young boy seriously? Why does it take a stranger with a shotgun to protect these kids? Is it because, as a gay child, he is invisible and unheard? I mean, I get it that the LGBT community is seen as 'less than;' isn't right, but that's how it is for right now. But that doesn't mean that we should be beaten; that doesn't mean that the children shouldn't be protected. it's a crime. From the basher to the school administrators to the driver. They are all perpetrators of a crime, for doing something with a pipe, and for doing nothing to stop it.
