As I mentioned yesterday, Polk County, Florida sheriff's deputies arrested the two ringleaders of the yearlong bullying campaign against 12-year-old Rebecca Sedwick. The move came on Monday night after Sheriff Grady Judd learned one of the girls made a sickening post on Facebook, “Yes ik I bullied Rebecca nd she killed her self but IDGAF." Well, this morning on Today, Judd dropped a bombshell--he's looking for a way to bring criminal charges against the ringleaders' parents as well.
“Right now there are no criminal charges that we can find, but if we could find a contributing to the dependency or delinquency of a child (charge), we certainly would bring that charge because I can tell you, the parents are in total denial,’’ Judd told Lauer. “They don’t think there’s a problem here, and that is the problem. It’s kind of like the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree, that’s what we have here. The parents are in denial and they even let her have her Facebook access after she bullied this child and after they knew it. That’s terrible. That’s why we moved fast to lock their daughter up.”
Watch the full interview
here:
At his press conference yesterday, Judd seemed as, if not more, outraged that the parents didn't exercise the most basic oversight over their daughters' online activities. According to Judd, the parents knew what their daughters were doing to Rebecca and continued to allow them unfettered access to social media. And as a result, a 12-year-old girl is dead. But now we know just how outraged he was--he thinks the parents need to be before a judge too. He already hinted at this yesterday when he said that if parents aren't doing anything to rein in bullying by their kids, "if we can get a toehold, we'll discipline you too." And that should make the parents of the other 13 girls who were reportedly involved in this nervous.
The parents probably should have lawyers on speed dial in any event. If Rebecca's mom, Tricia Norman, was inclined to do so, she'd have grounds for one whopper of a civil suit against the parents of these cowards. But if there is a way to press criminal charges against the parents as well, by all means Judd should pursue it. The signal must go out--bullies and the parents who enable them WILL be held accountable.
Judd also addressed why he decided to make these arrests now. He had enough evidence to arrest them despite having to pull teeth to get Ask.fm and Kik to cooperate with the investigation. However, he was waiting to put the entire case together. When he saw that comment on Facebook, however, he wasn't willing to chance that there was more bullying. The picture I get is that Judd was wanting to amass an airtight case so he could arrest as many of the people responsible for this in one massive sweep. But then he found out about this message from the ringleader. What if she was tormenting someone else and managed to get that person seriously hurt or worse? Can you imagine if it came out that they had enough evidence to arrest her, and didn't? There isn't a sheriff or police chief in this country who can do that and keep his badge.