Boy shot with BB gun by bullies

‘Behaviour contracts’ now implemented

Ahigh school student was held down and shot in the leg with a BB gun by bullies who later joked about the incident on social media. The Year 9 boy with mild Asperger Syndrome was also roughed up in the school toilets and “tormented” on the way home.

The victim received an email from another boy at Tauranga Boys’ College saying: “I am going to kill you mo ha ha ha DIE!”

Police have investigated and the two students involved in the shooting were suspended. They have returned to class under what college principal Robert Mangan described as “strict behaviour contracts”.

The bullying has left the family bereft. John and Gloria, the boy’s grandparents whom the Herald agreed to call by first names only to protect their grandson, said their daughter, the boy’s mother, had to go on medication for depression and insomnia.

“The mother says, ‘ What else can I do?’ She’s been everywhere and nobody seems interested. Now if anybody asks her about it she bursts into tears. It’s an awful thing, she can’t talk about it now,” John said.

John, 77, served 18 years in the police and wrote to the Tauranga district police commander after lodging a complaint when he learned of the shooting in July and then hearing nothing back for months.

“Last week for the first time we saw a policeman; a Youth Aid officer came to talk to us, and told me there is not much they can do because of the age of the boys — which to me doesn’t The grandparents, John and Gloria. make sense. It’s just been ignored.”

John’s grandson did not tell anyone after he was shot in late June, and the incident came to light only when his cousin, who also attends the college, saw a Facebook post with the boy’s photo and a comment saying: “He dont like me he f**kin hates me just bc i held him down while he got shot by a bb gun.[sic]”

Another boy commented: “Hahaha he started crying.”

John said his grandson “was sitting on the playing field by the administration block when these boys grabbed him, held him down and shot him in the leg”.

On another occasion, the cousin found the boy being roughed up in the toilets. “The cousin said he physically had to pull them off him.”

The boy received the death threat from an email address at the college on August 22, and his mother now picks him up after school.

“Two weeks ago, for the first time this year, she didn’t pick him up, and he was followed all the way home and abused and tormented.”

His grandson now tries to avoid going to the toilet at school, he said.

“The school’s answer is that at lunchtime and breaks he can go into the school library to avoid those people.”

The college has also given him a card that he can show to a teacher to leave a class at any time if he feels unsafe.

“All the kids see this . . . it just makes him a better target.”

Mangan confirmed that two boys were suspended and then placed on “strict behaviour contracts” after the victim was held down by one and shot by the other in the leg with a plastic BB gun pellet. The two boys apologised to the victim in writing, Mangan said. Their behaviour was being monitored closely and reported on daily to management.

He confirmed the victim was given “a card which allows him to leave any class he is uncomfortable in at any time, to enable him to access support from the Pastoral Care”.

“He does not have to show this in front of the other boys, but can do so discreetly at the teacher’s desk or outside the classroom.”

Mangan said the college was not aware of the incident in the toilets, but did investigate the emailed death threat and the incident on the way home. The offenders in both cases were “withdrawn from class for a period of time in a supervised room” and their parents were told.

Western Bay of Plenty police commander Inspector Clifford Paxton said police had spoken to “all parties” about the shooting and the matter was referred to Youth Aid.