Bikers rally behind bullying victim
SYDNEY, N.S.— Hundreds of bikers gathered in Sydney, N.S., Wednesday morning to escort a 10-year-old boy who has been the victim of bullying to school.
The leather-clad bikers drove Grade 4 student Xander Rose to school and walked with him in a line to the front door of Harbourside Elementary.
Mike Basso organized the rally to support the boy after his mother reached out to a U.S. advocacy group called Defenders Of The Children.
“I don’t know if the smile is off his face yet,” he said. “He was ecstatic. For the first time in a long while Xander wanted to go to school.”
Basso organizes the Cape Breton Bike Rally and he said about 150 bikers showed up. Basso said the 10year-old was being bullied because of his race and size, and that local school and community officials had failed to help him.
“He is a mixture of Aboriginal and African-Canadian and is 5-2 and 150 pounds,” he said. “He was being bullied every day. It got so bad that kids on his school bus ripped his clothes off and another student threatened they would kill him.”
Basso said the boy’s mother contacted the school, the local school board and other parents without success.
Cape Breton-Victoria Regional School Board spokesperson Michelle MacLeod said she could not speak about what steps the school took to stop the boy from being bullied because of confidentiality.