A student in New York state alleged to have forced a special-needs students to drink urine from a toilet is one of the same students who infamously bullied a bus monitor to tears in 2012 -- triggering a global outpouring of anger towards the bullies and support for the bus monitor.
"I don't believe this is happening again," now-retired bus monitor Karen Klein told Rochester New York’s WHEC after hearing news of the vicious treatment of the special-needs student.
It was reported earlier this week that three students at Greece Athena High School had confronted a special needs student in a bathroom at the school, allegedly forcing him to hold his crotch while drinking from the toilet.
The students filmed the incident and posted the video to Snapchat. It was quickly reported to school administrators who began to investigate.
David Richardson, principal of Greece Athena high school, sent a letter to parents about the incident on Thursday.
“While as a District, we cannot comment specifically on individual student discipline cases, we can say that students found to be involved will face strong and appropriate consequences as well as remedial actions designed to help them understand the inappropriateness of their behavior,” the letter said.
Klein's run-in with the students in Greece, N.Y., was also recorded on a cell phone camera.
In the footage, the students tormented Klein, then 68, with profanity, insults and threats. They went so far as to reference her son's suicide 10 years earlier -- saying "you don't have a family because they all killed themselves because they don't want to be near you."
The video went viral, and an Indiegogo campaign started by Toronto man Max Sidorov raised more than $700,000 in funds for Klein. She has since retired.
Sidorov, who launched the fundraising campaign with the goal of raising just $5,000 to send her on vacation, quickly responded to the latest news allegedly involving one of the same students.
"CAN YOU BELIEVE THIS?!" Sidorov posted on Facebook on Friday evening. He called on anyone who is enraged by the story to support a new Indiegogo campaign to "turn that anger into the kind of positive force that makes you want to do something good."
"Lets get this special needs child a handsome makeover, get him some new gear, or give him a trip to Disney Land!" Sidorov wrote on the page for the campaign.
He called on readers not to "send the bullies negativity," which he said would only lead to more hatred, but rather to "focus on what can be done, and what can be done is to rally and unite for a good cause and to spread a good message."
