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The Billy Wolfe story just got a little juicier. OK, a LOT juicier.
Scott F. Davis and Dustin Tracy of the Northwest Arkansas Times have put together a story entitled, “Who’s the bully? : Police, school records raise questions about claims made by Fayetteville High student” that is sure to heat things up again in regards to the boy who claims to have been bullied for years for no apparent reason.
Davis and Tracy shed light on what many have been wondering since the original story was first published in the New York Times. In other words, we’re finally hearing from the “bullies” and not just the “bullied.” And as it turns out, Billy Wolfe’s lawsuit against the students he says continuously beat him up may be headed for a dead end.
From Dylan Gray, the student in a wheelchair with muscular dystrophy to Benny Burk from Wolfe’s shop class, today’s story seems to have covered most of the more popular claims that Wolfe and his family are making. It’s quite a shocking read, to be honest, even if you’d already suspected that the Wolfes might not be telling the whole truth.
And as for the Wolfes’ claim that the school officials and police aren’t doing anything to stop the “bullying”, Davis and Tracy have uncovered quite a bit of evidence to prove otherwise. In fact, they even published disciplinary records from the police department that show Billy had been disciplined (yes, Billy) for picking on students and then “admitted wrongdoing and stated he would not do it anymore.”
As this story begins to get less fuzzy around the edges for us here in Fayetteville, it’s hard not to wonder how things will look to the rest of the nation once 20/20 puts the final edits on their upcoming investigation. Will they talk to the same individuals or will they also release a premature story?
The biggest question of all, however, is will it turn out that the original NY Times article should have been entitled “A Bully the Boys Love to Beat Up, Repeatedly?”
Cowboys + Jones = True Love Forever
Apr 3rd, 2008
Here we go…
Apr 3rd, 2008
So, there is definitely more to this story which was not even hinted at in the NY Times article.
Further, I’ll bet you $30 they do not follow up w/ any kind of investigation.
It must be nice to swoop into a community, tell one side of the story effectively turning the community upside down, and then wash you hands of the issue completely.
Apr 3rd, 2008
for those keeping score at home regarding responsible journalism:
NWATimes 1, NY Times 0
Apr 3rd, 2008
Where’s that got truth fucker, now that this shiz has finally come to light?
Apr 3rd, 2008
FF 3
Apr 3rd, 2008
If you feel Dan Barry and the Times need to explain their article, Dan’s email at the Times is danbarry@nytimes.com. I originally wrote him when the article came out and he got back to me - (I didn’t like his heh-hehs but that is beside the point.)
This was his take on it - below is a copy of the email he sent to me.
“Thank you for your note. First, I should tell you that my story was a column; I’m a columnist, which means I can have a point of view. Hence the heh-hehs, which I thought conveyed the bully mindset of making fun of people by calling them homosexual, or whatever. I’m sorry this device didn’t work for you, but if it showed one-sidedness, then yes, I am against bullies.
I also made great effort to portray billy as a complicated kid, and not an angel. I also tried very hard to get the school district’s side, but received only perfunctory answers.
Lastly. I wrote high in the piece that bullying is EVERYWHERE, including Fayetteville - a city I like, by the way.
Anyway, thank you for reading the piece and taking the time to comment.
Take care.
Dan Barry”
My favorite part is he is allowed to have a point of very - even if that point of view is not quite accurate? Wow from now on I am a columnist!!!!
If the Times doesn’t at least reference the other side of the story I would consider trying to get Dan’s journalistic competition to run with it - it may be of no interest, but then again, they may. All sides deserve a voice.
Apr 3rd, 2008
Sorry two corrections to my post - I should say after his initial article Dan Barry wrote right back. I sent him a link to the NWA Times article - so far no response. But it has been less then a day - I will give him a few days to respond.
And that was supposed to be point of view - my keyboard skills sometimes fail me.
Apr 4th, 2008
Barry is probably busy fielding pissed off emails from the people of Charlottesville by now…
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/31/us/31land.html?_r=1&oref=slogin
Apr 10th, 2008
SHAME ON YOU!. Regardless of what you ‘hometown’ bullies want to say, you can’t change the TRUTH of the matter. This kid is being bullied and worst of all, the bullies are the entire town, everyone that has been involved and has not tried to change this injustice. Go Ahead, make as many articles on these silly little website’s as you want and we, the general public, will continue to investigate for ourselves what is really happening. How pathetic you all are, taking up for a bunch of spoiled brat bullies all at the expense of what used to be a good little guy who definitely was a momma’s boy….. and why….why would any adult even want to be a part of such an atrocity? I guess the mentality of your town is just beneath anything I have ever encountered….
P.S. You should be VERY GLAD THAT MY FAMILY DOESN’T LIVE NEAR YOU because when we see injustice, unlike this Billy & his family, we fight back~and frankly, from the clear evidence, your town can’t take what they dish out and they could not handle anyone thier own size of greater, more intelligence and moral character. You disgust me!
Apr 10th, 2008
Denniece from Oklahoma.
Is that really how you spell your first name? Or did you typo your own first name?
Oh, nevermind. I see you’re from Oklahoma, that explains it.
Apr 10th, 2008
I’ve never heard of a family as big as a city of 70,000. Denniece’s family must be HUGE!
Apr 10th, 2008
those darn catholics and their big families…
Apr 10th, 2008
She’s not necessarily Catholic, her last name could be “Duggar”.
Apr 13th, 2008
I think it’s important to circulate this response. The NWA Times had all of this information prior to writing its “article,” but chose to portray a single side of the story in the same sense that many accuse Mr. Barry of having done. The Wolfes have written this reply, and ask that anyone interested circulate it as much as possible:
As parents we hope that your children never have to endure the wrath of the public relations machines of Fayetteville School District and the Northwest Arkansas Times. Under the headline of “Who’s the bully? Police school records raise questions about claims made by Fayetteville High Student,” the Northwest Arkansas Times became a part of the problem instead of the solution. The head line is wrong and the Northwest Arkansas Times had all the information that we are sharing with you before it printed the article.
With the exception of one, all of the boys interviewed have brutally assaulted our son, or have participated in the Facebook group entitled “Everyone That Hates Billy Wolfe” including Dylan Gray who suffers from muscular dystrophy and is in a wheel chair. Dylan was one of the creators of the Facebook site. All of the boys interviewed have violated the criminal statutes of the State of Arkansas, except for Andrew Holtzen who claims our son threw dirt clods at his house. In this Facebook group they called our son a “b****”, a “homosexual” and reminded everybody how they yelled “F*** you” at him and hit him in the face with a newspaper and the teacher did nothing. Ian Teeters states in the Northwest Arkansas Times’ article that our son is blowing this all out of proportion and “[he] never really planned to hit Wolfe.” The Northwest Arkansas Times presents the attack as if Ian Teeters stepped in the middle of an altercation between our son and another student whose name is Will Starks. That is far from the truth.
On March 7, 2007, Will Starks posted on Facebook that “everybody’s going to kick his ass” referring to our son. On March 8, 2007, Will Starks stated “ha ha who said I was going to hit him? Ha ha nah I got people who are going to do it 4 me…”
On March 9, 2008, another Facebook site that encouraged “Everybody Start Carrying Their Cameras to School and Provoking People to get into Fights! We Need Some Pictures!!” the bragging continued. Will Starks stated further:
“my friend just clocks this little b*** right in his jaw and ends up bustin out 1 or 2 of his teeth and this little hoe just drops to the floor and just passes the F**** out or just starts ballin ___ but it was funny as sh**!!! I’m a little made that I didn’t get a punch in b/c a teacher was right around the corner ……. agh damn I wish I could of.”
We brought these posts to the attention of Byron Zeagler who did not approach any of these kids. On March 9, 2008 Ian Teeters sucker punched our son knocking him out cold. His whole face was bruised. It was not Ian Teeters stepping in between Will Starks and our son. It was a cold blooded and pre-planned attack. One 14 year old girl related the attack to her mother as follows:
She said a big boy just turned around and punched Wolfe in the face with his fist so hard it knocked him to the floor. She said that Wolfe had done nothing to this boy whom she did not know. The teachers stuck their heads out of the doors and said “kids cut it out.” They ignored the attack. This angered her and she wanted to say something to the big boy that hit Wolfe, but she was too scared.
This was not an attack brought on by our son as the Northwest Arkansas Times and the School District would have you believe.
Lindsey Broadway, the daughter of an FHS coach and teacher, posted in a new Facebook group entitled “Bias.” Lindsey claimed that she spoke with her father and another teacher, and that they spoke negatively about Billy’s academic performance. It does not surprise us that teachers continue to talk negatively and breed this culture of hate as they are just following the administration’s example. There is no way our son can learn in this hostile environment. She further stated “part of me wishes he would get the crap beaten out of him, he is lier [sic] and there is no need for that…he is lying!” Finally, she stated as if it were a fact that “Billy killed Dylan’s cat.”
Lindsey is just one of the students engaging in an intentional rumor spreading campaign on the internet. A significant number of these posts are being done during school time, supposedly at Fayetteville High School. The posts appear to be a coordinated effort to portray our son as a “cat killer,” that is cruel to animals in general. The only student thus far to post a conflicting opinion was Dylan Gray himself (the owner of the cat that many students claim our son killed) who posted that he only “suspect[ed] that he killed my cat.” Our son did NOT kill Dylan’s cat. Our son is NOT cruel to animals. These rumors are just more savage assaults on our son. The vast majority of the student’s accounts offer nothing more than rumors; things the students have heard from “friends” or sadly, parents and teachers as in Lindsey’s case. We have been very careful to only relay facts, or events that we have witnessed first hand to every media outlet we have spoken with. It’s unfortunate (but predictable) that our son’s attackers, the Northwest Arkansas Times and the School District are not doing the same.
Perhaps most heartbreaking is the continued bullying by the Fayetteville School District’s Public Relations Department and its Superintendent. On March 24, 2008, the school district issued a press release stating “In fact, the whole story cannot be told, since the Federal Family and Education Right to Privacy Act prohibits the release of any information from a student’s record to anyone other than the student’s parent or guardian,” inferring that if the New York Times writer knew that our son was really a loser, he would not be writing the article. John Brummett of the Morning News confirmed our suspicions in his April 3rd column where he wrote that although Bobby New, Fayetteville’s Superintendent of Schools could not discuss student’s disciplinary records, Mr. New pointed out to Mr. Brummett, with an assumed wink, a letter to the editor in the NWA Times which offered that it was the “shared opinion” that our son “picks fights,” he is “rude to his superiors” and his mother is an “opportunist.” This comes from a man that is supposed to protect our son. Statements like these from the School District are why it is necessary to have a police car at our son’s bus stop. This same attitude is why he has been beaten time and again. The School District is creating a culture of hatred along with the bullies and the Northwest Arkansas to savage our son and our family. By the way, the young man that signed the letter to the editor (we expect that it was written by the school district) in the Northwest Arkansas Times is the same young man that stated in the Northwest Arkansas Times article that our son threw dirt clods at his house.
The press release goes on to state that the District has no jurisdiction over many of the incidents leaving the impression that the District was somehow absolved of its responsibility. Please note that out of the nine (9) incidents noted by the Northwest Arkansas Times, eight (8) happened on school property or on the way to school. Also, please note that there was no police report available for six (6) out of the nine (9) incidents. The report for the one incident that occurred outside of the jurisdiction of the school was unavailable because the perpetrators were juveniles. The two available police reports were only made because we reported the attacks after the school refused to report.
It is interesting that although the School District and Superintendent New seem to lament that the federal laws prevent them from releasing student information they somehow found a way to get Byron Zeagler’s private notes about our son into the Northwest Arkansas Times with the purpose of making him look like a trouble maker. First of all, our son does not remember most of these incidents and secondly and most important are his individual education plans (“IEPs”) for the last four years. Our son is a special education student and a committee made up of his principal and his teachers develop a plan for him. This committee is one of Byron Zeagler’s responsibilities. For the last four years the committee stated that Billy needed no behavioral interventions. If Mr. Zeagler thought Billy’s behavior was a problem, it should have been in these documents. Instead of Mr. Zeagler providing the assessment of the controlling legal documents to the police or the press, he made his private notes available. Why? He did not have accountability to the committee for his private notes. The more incriminating question is why these documents were supplied to the police when our son was savagely attacked as noted above. Certainly he got our son’s records confused with Ian Teeters, the attacker. We wonder if Ian Teeters’ records are going to be made available to the Northwest Arkansas Times or does Mr. Zeagler only keep private notes on our son? Our son’s IEP reports showing this information will be made available to anybody that asks. Mr. Zeagler has defamed and terrorized our son. The IEP report goes further and states that Billy is “quiet, cooperative and pleasant, but has recently had dark circles under his eyes and they recommend counseling to help reduce his anxieties.” At the end of his IEP review one of the teachers said the “ bleeding of Billy Wolfe has to stop.” It will stop.
We will be glad to provide all of our son’s records, Facebook posts and other source documents to back up this letter. These are the same documents that were in large provided to the Northwest Arkansas Times and were ignored. Please email us at nobully@wolfetrade.com.
Sincerely,
Penney and Curt Wolfe
Apr 25th, 2008
Yes, this is the correct spelling of my name…and yes, my biological family is catholic. I’m not at all ignorant of the rest of the ‘facts’ on this story…and I stand by my first opinion and statement….need I say again…SHAME ON YOU!
Apr 27th, 2008
Denniece, we give up. Please do not send your family of over 70,000 catholic Oklahomans to Northwest Arkansas to pick on us. We’re sorry, you big bully.
UNCLE!!!