By now, you’ve probably seen or heard about Karen Klein, the school bus monitor, who was verbally attacked by a pack of feral teenagers.  This story reminds me of a Stephen King story about mutant kids who believe anyone over 18 should die.

Growing up, if I or anyone in my school had done something like this, we would’ve had our mouth washed out with soap sometime before or after a good beating with a belt.

Mrs. Klein, a widow, who has chosen not to prosecute these predators, is a far better person than I am.  If it were me, I would pursue every means possible to punish these misfits if for nothing else but to get them the psychological counseling they so obviously and desperately need.

You don’t need to be a mental health provider to know these kids are seriously disturbed.  My first thought was that they were soulless, but from a strictly religious point of view, I believe they have a soul.  But those souls are so depraved, so blackened, so vicious, and so lacking in any humanity, it actually may be too late to save them.  Having spent over two decades in the area of child welfare and abuse, my sense tells me to look to their parents and home life to see how they were raised to exhibit such cruelty to another human being.   As I said, these kids are in need of some serious therapy.

And Dr. Brian Russell, attorney and psychologist, agrees with me.  “… While I’m glad to see the country coming out so strongly against bullying, I think:  1) this particular woman clearly should never have been put in the bus monitor position with these particular kids, and 2) the parents of the kids involved have mental-health emergencies on their hands.  They need to get those kids to shrinks, perhaps get them to church, and most importantly, get them immersed in some intensive, value-centric structure and discipline immediately.  Kids who take pleasure in causing the kind of suffering that these students caused this woman have proverbial screws loose in their brains, and if people like them make it out of childhood with those screws still loose, it’s likely to be bad times for them, and for those with whom they come into contact, in adulthood.  If such loose screws ever tighten up post-childhood, it tends to be only after people get hit — literally and/or figuratively — very, very hard by life.”

If any of these kids were mine, I would hand him a 2-month supply of Vitamin D today because he wouldn’t see the light of day until the first day of school.  Forget about iPads, iPhones, iPods or Xbox games or television or whatever else fills these kids’ heads with violence that creates this type of depraved indifference to another human being.  He’d be writing an apology to Mrs. Klein, to the school and to the community, in general, asking for their forgiveness for his vile behavior.  (So far Mrs. Klein has refused to accept their apologies.)

If I were in charge of the school bus, I wouldn’t even allow these kids back on.  If it was inconvenient for their parents, I’d say, “Well, ain’t that too bad. Deal with it.”

If I were Empress of the World, I’d have a Wall of Shame on each and every school in the nation next to the Honor Roll.  At Athena Middle School, I’d make sure their photos would be at the top of the board on day one of the next school year.  In my world, these kids would be shunned and their behavior would be reflected in their school file.

If you have the stomach to actually watch the entire video, the sickening, vulgar words spewed at this 68-year old woman go way beyond any “school prank” or “they’re just being kids” rationale.  I’ll bet this same type of behavior was evident in their school which, in today’s culture, is completely impotent to deal with this conduct.  If the parents condone this language in the home, then there’s something wrong with them as well.

This malevolent behavior has always been around.  Cruelty to animals is a common behavior in children and adolescents who grow up to become the next serial killers or other violent criminals.  But here, we’re talking about cruelty to another human being.  I suggest these parents get their children to the shrink and Church as soon as possible or we’ll be reading about them in a true crime book one of these days.

I don’t get it, but if you do, God bless you.