In teen beating, don’t blame bus driver

What would you have done?

Last month in Florida, a school bus driver witnessed a vicious assault on a 13-year-old boy. He radioed the bus dispatcher and frantically begged for assistance, as he feared the victim was being seriously injured. But he did not intervene.

While the victim’s physical injuries may heal, his psychological trauma will undoubtedly linger, including the harrowing knowledge that no one would help him.

But before we pile on the driver, let’s be clear: The most egregious wrongdoers here are the violent teens. They victimized a boy horribly and wronged the agonized bystanders.

The driver’s anguish over his own inaction may be real and palpable, but should he still have done more? Obviously, he wasn’t confident enough of his own physical ability to handle several violent teenagers, although he had a special responsibility to protect the children on that bus.

We all want to think that we would disregard our own personal safety to help children, but in a highly charged moment, a bystander is forced to make an instant, possibly haunting judgment about risk and danger.

Violence works both by crushing a victim and by intimidating others. When you’re not there, it’s easy to dismiss the terror, but for the bystander, it’s often a lose-lose proposition. Fail to intervene, and it haunts you; intervene, and you may become the victim.

Despite that admiration, and despite our sense as adults that we need to protect children, many of us find that we do not, and cannot, intervene as bystanders.

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