Alleged seventh grade bully's parents defend their son

INDIANAPOLIS (WISH) - There is a battle of words between two sets of parents. This after I-Team 8 questioned the lack of a firm anti-bully policy, as required by state law, at one local middle school.

The case stems from a Friday football practice where seventh graders in Mooresville were let out early and left unsupervised. One mother says her son was bullied and then assaulted.

We asked both parents to go on air last night. Only one agreed. But after the story aired today the other parents agreed to talk but only if shadowed. They want to defend their son.

The parents stepped forward because they say their son is not a bully.

The mom told us “We are just concerned for our son because he has never been in trouble in or out of school, never one report of bullying. I have never been contacted by a teacher, parent, principal or nobody last year or this year.”

Both boys got into a fight after each says the other taunted them. Both are suspended for three days. Both parents say the other boy bullied their boy starting last year.

The mom said, “I have actual documentation of her son doing something to my kid.”

The documentation she refers to is an email sent last April to the 6th grade teacher naming the other boy. This mom says just because her son is bigger, 5'10" vs. 5'2", doesn’t make him a bully.

Mom says, “I think it's a misconception that every time there is a fight the big kid is picking on the little kid that the big kid is to blame. I'm not saying it always happens but the little kids do pick on the big kids.”

For the mom of the other 12-year old Jacob Moyer the issue is also about what she says is a lack of an anti-bully policy at the school. Our I-Team 8 investigation Bullied: Silent Tears prompted the state law requiring schools have one. She recorded her meeting with school officials on Monday where she repeatedly asked to see it.

Mom on the tape asks, “You don’t have one here?” The school official asks, “Of the bully policy? No I do not.”

Our I-Team 8 investigation also found the football players were left alone when the coach ended practice early and disappeared into the locked school.

The school official says, “Our coaches cutting practice early, that's a broad mistake. I'm gonna admit that. I don't know what we were thinking. I wasn't there. That wasn’t the impression of what was gonna happen. They know better than that.”

Both sets of parents do agree on that one.

The father tells us, “I think it is important that the boys were not supervised at the end of practice. I can’t defend that. But I definitely would defend what the school has done since the incident occurred.” As for the bullying she says started last year, listen to what she was told by the elementary school officials. She says she was told “pretty much kids will be kids, it happens every day. I don’t think it was taken care of last year and if it had been it would not have spilled over into this year.”

As for this years fight, they say their son was hit once on the head and injured too.

The mom says her son is not doing well, “he is the gentle giant and gets along with everybody.”

While the Mooresville school system told I-team 8 they don't have a bully policy, they do have a student conduct code. Both boys return to school tomorrow.