Autistic teen severely injured in bully attack

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Heart breaking and tragic news story about autistic teen severely injured in a bomb attack by bullies. If I could, I'd try to help him. I might try to send him a card, if possible.

http://metro.co.uk/2013/05/15/autistic- ... m-3759852/

I wonder if there's anything Wrong Planet members can do to help Michael? Please lend him your thoughts. He lives in Australia. Wishing you all the best, Michael, and that you can overcome what has been done to you.

I simply have to know what kind of pathological reasoning could ever make anyone think something like this is "cool," "funny," or in any way, shape, or form a good or acceptable idea.

Maybe it's a failure of ToM, but I simply do not understand. Tossing someone a bomb on a field of battle is hard enough for me to understand. Doing it at any other time and in any other place simply does not compute.

I guess adolescent social relations are now warfare, with no similie, metaphor, hyperbole, or other form of figurative language employed????

Yeah, and from what I've read about this incident, the reason why is actually not clear except that the bullies were just 'being mean.' How can this be punished? What restitution does Michael have? To rebuild his life? The tragedy is that this was not an accident. "Warfare" indeed, and so callously meaningless.

The Wrong Planet homepage has posted a lot of great videos about bullying with common sense approaches. Reading this news story sort of makes you wonder though, what could have prevented this? Well, donations are helping the victim and family and hopefully too to raise awareness about this tragedy. This is not the first tragedy of this kind and there will be more.

Absolutely disgusting and so are allistics for making excuses for this sort of behaviour. The person who tried to kill the autistic kid was never was his friend because friends don't do that to each other the culprit was more than likely a thicko and we all know the danger thickos can be to people on the autistic spectrum. You wont find that in the media because that wouldn't sell. I bet the thug as loads of apologists making excuses for him. Disgusting.

That's just plain disgusting what that boy's enemy did to him. he intended to kill him. It's going to take him years to start trusting his peers again. It's going to take him years to start trusting people again. Now everybody's going to be on the bully's side. The world certainly hasn't changed since the days of Rainman.

Right on. I guess the bully who committed this atrocity may be charged with attempted murder despite being underage. I do not know how the Australian legal system might cope with this sentence though.

It is possible a portion of the donations could fund a programme to protect kids like Michael and for proactive prevention with real accountability for bullying. We need to get a lot tougher on bullies to send them a strong message.

Meanwhile..........take care, Michael, and best wishes on your recovery

No kidding. Because I'm afraid I actually DO know what kind of reasoning could make this seem funny, or acceptable, or like a good idea. It's LET'S GET THE FREAK!! ! Umm, isn't that kind of wrong? WHO CARES HE'S A FREAK!! !! !! !"

I hope people don't make the choice to look the other way. Pushing a little girl who talked too much and cried too easily down the stairs over and over and over again is one thing. I still have all my fingers (toes, bones, functional senses) and all my scars are on the inside. If one of them were to say they were wrong and they're sorry, I could potentially forgive them and have the problem be all-and-really-over.

Nothing will ever undo this damage that Michael has to live with. Even if he recovers enough trust to function and be happy, he doesn't get his fingers back. And if they'd killed him?? Well, dead is dead. You can't apologize to dead. Can't remediate dead. Can't send a corpse to therapy.

These young "humans" need to be nailed to a wall.

They should get at least 30 years in prison. Why? Because the bomb could have killed that kid.

This is attempted murder and the kids should be criminally charged.

their case is already on the docket in a "higher court."