ROCHESTER, N.Y. — An upstate New York bus monitor taunted and verbally abused by middle school students said Thursday that she hopes their parents will view the viral video of the attack and talk to their children about being “a little more respectful.”
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The incident was captured in a 10-minute cellphone video recorded by one of the students and posted to YouTube. It shows 68-year-old Karen Klein trying her best to ignore the stream of profanity, insults, and outright threats directed at her. At one point in the video, she breaks down in tears.
Watch Klein being taunted here:
By early Wednesday, the video had gone viral, and by Thursday morning, it had been viewed more than 1.5 million times on YouTube.
Klein told NBC’s “Today” show Thursday that it took “a lot of willpower” not to respond to Monday’s jeers from at least four seventh- and eighth-grade boys riding the bus operated by the Greece Central School District, a suburban Rochester district that’s the ninth largest in the state.
“I’m not usually that calm. Just ask my kids,” Klein said during the interview. “I’m sure they don’t act that way at home, but you never know what they’re going to do when they’re out of the house.”
Outrage over Klein’s treatment on the bus led to an outpouring of support. The international crowd funding site Indiegogo.com had raised more than $124,000 by Thursday to send the grandmother of eight on a vacation.
“I’m so amazed,” she said.
“I’ve got these nice letters, e-mails, Facebook messages,” Klein said. “It’s like, wow, there’s a whole world out there that I didn’t know. It’s really awesome.”
The support for Klein follows a recent surge in awareness of bullying that has brought the issue from the classroom to the stage and screen to the White House.
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