Gawker
Turns out the subject of that New York Times article about the Arkansas kid who gets beat up all the time, Billy Wolfe, is himself a bit of bad news. And that Pulitzer-winning reporter Dan Barry either missed or ignored that complicating little twist. A story in the Northwest Arkansas Times details a police report on young Wolfe: "[T]he police report contains allegations that Billy harassed a student confined to a wheelchair with muscular dystrophy by sneaking up behind him and screaming to aggravate the disabled boy’s sensitivity to noise, by bouncing a rubber ball against the disabled boy’s head, and by calling him 'stupid' and a 'retard.' The police report provides further context on the assaults described in the NYT."
"One allegedly occurred after Billy called a boy who had just moved from Germany and whose mother had just died of cancer a 'gay [expletive ] German' and then called his 'deceased mother a vulgar name.' Another incident allegedly occurred after Billy pushed another student. Billy was accused of picking on other kids, stealing, and intimidating those that he picked on against telling the teacher."
Blogger Jay P. Greene, who lives in Wolfe's town and whose kids go to the school featured in the Times article, further notes, "But the NYT article by Dan Barry makes no mention of the police report or the details contained in it. Nor did Dan Barry’s reporting uncover any of the information from the interviews contained in the Northwest Arkansas Times article. Instead, Barry simply writes, 'It remains unclear why Billy became a target…' He also declares, '[Billy] has received a few suspensions for misbehavior, though none for bullying.' It seems the NYT reporter either somehow missed the existence of the police report or decided not to include its contents in his piece. Either way, it is very sloppy reporting. I sent an email to the Public Editor of the NYT asking if Barry had seen the police report, and, if he had seen it, why he chose not to include it in his article. Other than a form letter I’ve received no reply."
Comments
I am so happy I ripped on this little dweeb back when this was originally posted.
VINDICATION!
This kid deserves to have the shit beat out of him. Send him running back to his double-wide!
Ah, the American South, home of convenient short term memory loss, revisionist history, and every manner of cruelty mankind can dream up.
Karma will run over your ass!
(But this jaggoff will probably end up with a book deal or Lifetime movie: "My Name is Billy" *sigh*)
Not Billy Wolfe! My world is shattered.
I really like those sort of impressionistic, slice-of-life type stories, but they only work if you're not overly concerned with niceties like fact checking and both-sides-of-the-coin-ism. If you're gonna go gonzo, go all the way gonzo.
@BettyCrocker: Hey! Arkansas gave us Bill and Hil!
@ExecutiveIntern: @NorCal: @MyCubeHas3Sides:
A bullied kid [any of the kids mentioned] goes on to bully some kids [any of the kids mentioned, again] or a bully [most of the kids] gets bullied by other bullies [you get the point now]. either way, it's all kind of sad and pathetic that we make such a big deal about these kids and then chastise and rip on 12 year olds when really the focus should be on their parents and the school for obviously doing very little and letting the cycle continue. but as we see from the comments, it's much easier to just snark what's right in front of you and an easy target, kind of like... BULLYING! I expect more from all of you. I mean, at least be funny.
@Mike_Jahn: As I said...
*cue music*
The Circle of Life
The NYT and "very sloppy reporting"?
What is happening to the world?
White people turn yellow when bruised? That's kind of weirdly cool.
You know what? All kids are assholes. That should have been the first line of the article.
But to be fair to this particular asshole, Germans ARE gay. Everyone knows that.
@BettyCrocker: Just like the American North.
@BettyCrocker:
What does this have to do with the deep south? This every playground from Minot ND, to Brownsville TX to Bangore MN to Sacramento CA.
So while the Times Reporter may have conveniently left out some details to make the circumstance fit his story, the fact is that the original story about kids beating up other kids is about as newsworthy as Times Reporters making shit up.
Kids beating kids up? I've never heard of such a thing. Colour me shocked and appalled.
Then again, I live in Canada.
@hypocriteoath: I disagree, to an extent. This kid is twelve, not six, and he should be able to differentiate right from wrong without additional guidance from his parents. Yes, they clearly failed him at a crucial stage in his development, but any kid who would mercilessly harass a muscular dystrophy patient is going to hell, and going there on his own terms.
@VirusWithShoes:
fixed the typo: The NYT usual "very sloppy reporting"?
@VirusWithShoes: It is nearing alignment with the Sun, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn and the moon, at which point the south pole will upset its axis and flood the earth. Only the cats know how to avoid this, but we can't communicate with them.
@bittergreen: there is something epicly weird and gothic about cruelty in the south
in ny it's just fuck it
down south it's deeply twisted and personal
@if_i_only_had_a_heart: Thanks for that. I have a bad case of Friday-fingers.
When I read this article initially, I thought it sounded like it was something out of The Onion. Guess I wasn't too far off.
@ambitious: yellow's like stage three. purple > green > yellow. it is weird, huh?
@fiveinchtaint: Speak for yourself - I had a short talk with my cats this morning, and all I could get out of them (apart from their usual Julia Allison gossip) was "back up your data".
I've been burning DVD's full of stuff since 10 o'clock and watching the skies steadily darken with ever-greater numbers of crows.
I mean... I see the hypocrisy, but you have to admit that messing with people with muscular dystrophy is hilarious.
It's unfortunate that Barry, if he knew about it, omitted this particular facet from the piece. It certainly would have been a more nuanced view of bullying; the trickle-down nature of cruelty in what is ultimately a Darwinian environment: our superb education system.
people that get abused, abuse back.
It 's lame what he did, but likely a result of being beat on for years
@hypocriteoath: I couldn't agree with you more.
@brownham: Not all of us!!!!!! Just saying.........
Wow.
A kid who's a jerk gets beat up by other jerks.
Was Dan Barry homeschooled or something?
@brownham: A facile argument there. Some who are abused live the rest of their lives doing the complete opposite.
@BeachLover420: Agreed.
@if_i_only_had_a_heart:
Gothic, schmothic, Dixie was written by a New Yorker.
Nobody knows the deeply twisted personalizing weird creeps I've seen...
Nobody knows but "South" New Yorkers....
NYT has morphed into a fiction magazine. Between the blatant slant on every hard news article and the plain made up feature articles, cant believe a word they say.
PS: "All kids are assholes" priceless!!
@if_i_only_had_a_heart: Is this from experience or from reading Joe R. Lansdale?
@Seeräuber Jenny:
Sorry, "epically weird creeps."
"Epically weird" was good.
@ambitious:
Bruises allow white people to experience every color of the rainbow, sometimes simultaneously. Right now I have a black a blue edged with green and yellow. It's grotesquely beautiful.
"But the NYT article by Dan Barry makes no mention of the police report or the details contained in it. Nor did Dan Barry's reporting uncover any of the information from the interviews contained in the Northwest Arkansas Times article..."
Never let the facts get in the way of a good story
@Colonel Mustard: yeah, the wheelchair kid stuff is inexcusable but 12 year olds still have years of formative experience/time ahead of them. the kid is troubled but not a lost cause... yet. the parents and school administrators however are all pretty weak people from what I've seen so far.
And that’s one to grow on!
@Katxyz: I've seen bruised white people before (I actually had one in my bed this morning*) with yellow-edged bruises but never yellow yellow just yellow bruises. That looks cah-ray-zee. I guess I need to beat up more white people in order to learn all of your mysterious mysteries.
* I didn't do it! But he's German so maybe Billy did it? I bet Billy did it.
So did his mistreatment of weaker people (Germans, the disabled) come before his being bullied (that is, was it heroic payback?) or after (is he really really that stupid?)
The more you know!
@Colonel Mustard: "This kid is twelve, not six, and he should be able to differentiate right from wrong without additional guidance from his parents."
Please, please don't become a parent. Ever. Thank you.
@ambitious: Thank you. Just like the American West. Just like the American territories of Guam and American Samoa. Equating the behavior with the geography is an oversimplification.
With his out-of-date hair and bruises, he looks like a kid from an 80's after-school special about beaten up kids beating up other kids.
What is it you call a [person who's being picked on by a bully] anyway? A "bullee"?
I'm so confused.
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