When I was in the cyber space I was tormented the same way. We need to put an end to this cycle of hatred. 
<iframe width="853" height="480" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/YuCRx9eCFrU" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
This small suburb of Rochester, largely unknown until this week, is now internationally famous after a 10-minute video titled "Making the bus monitor cry" appeared online.
"Oh my God you're so fat," one youngster says to the bus monitor, whose identity was revealed as Karen Klein.
Forty-eight hours since it appeared, the video has gathered 3m views and 68,000 comments, and spawned an internet campaign to raise money to give Klein the "holiday of a lifetime" that has now raised nearly $500,000. Klein, meanwhile has appeared on Good Morning America, Today, and Fox and Friends on the back of the wave of revulsion the video has provoked.
And the residents of Greece – whose population of just under 100,000 is dwarfed by the numbers sharing, commenting and criticizing the schoolboys' actions – are as shocked as any of the online commenters or news channel talking heads.
"It's very friendly here. I don't see much crime around this area," said 25-year-old Katie Gillette as she loaded packages into her car outside the Tops supermarket, around half a mile from where most of the video's protagonists live.
For Gillette, who described the video as "just unreal", the schoolboy bullies need strong punishment.
"I would make my son do something for her and apologise. I mean, he's just two and a half right now, but I would make him mow her lawn for a while."
After four children were identified under the original YouTube video as being Klein's taunters, an address was procured through 4chan for one of them, Wesley Helm. On Thursday, Helm's father, Robert, apologised for his son's behaviour. "I would say I'm sorry. This is not the way I raised my kids. I never would in my wildest dreams think they were capable of this," Helm said in a TV interview.
There are plenty of lawns to be mown on Helm's street, where big, comfortable wood-panelled houses sit back from the road, freshly trimmed grass spanning the distance from pavement to property.
It's not a deprived neighbourhood. Most of the two-storey properties have two cars on the driveway, with double garages gaping open outside some, enabling that particularly American past-time of yardwork.
There was no sound, and no response at the Helm household, with doors and windows closed and curtains drawn. A basketball net stood unused on the drive, next to two SUVs.
Neighbours said up to three police cars had been parked outside the home on Wednesday evening and Thursday morning, but there was no police presence on Thursday night. One woman, who asked not to be named, said the residents of the Helm household were "not our sort of people". She had called the police four years ago after her house was "egged", suspecting that the eggs were hurled from the Helm's yard, but it was never proved.
One of the other boys, Brandon Teng, lives around a two-minute walk away, in a similar white-washed, two storey house. Like at the Helm household, there was a forlorn-looking basketball net outside the property. There was also no response.
Klein said on Thursday that she does not want to press charges against the four 13-year-olds named as her verbal abusers, but it will fall upon Greece Central School District to determine the punishment for the Athena Middle School students, which is likely to be a period of suspension.
Back at Tops, John Kier was among several people the Guardian spoke to who felt that the retribution was unlikely to be sufficient.
"We need to get them cleaning the bathrooms," said Caroline Klepacz, 47. "Back when I was a kid, you'd have been given a toothbrush and be cleaning the latrines."
Klepacz, who works with children with disabilities, said in addition to the lavatory cleaning the four involved "should have to ride the bus all summer long".
"They should have to be a bus monitor with this woman, and be bullied by kids that are younger than them."
Kevin Herrington, a 49-year-old painting contractor, thought that disrespect from children was "more prevalent nowadays".
"I'm sure our parents said the same thing about us," he said. "But I think as generations go on and on I think it's getting worse, I don't see it getting any better. Now again though, I've been around kids that age who are unbelievably respectful, but I've seen the other side too."
In some comments online there is much clamour for a return to corporal punishment, a return to the stronger chastisement of decades ago.
But in an era when antics can go from schoolbus to international audience in a matter of minutes, the children's names and addresses have aready been published, while they have witnessed international condemnation of their parents and received thousands of threats of violence.
Those involved may already have received a punishment harsher than any a school official could ever administer.
<iframe width="853" height="480" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/YuCRx9eCFrU" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
This small suburb of Rochester, largely unknown until this week, is now internationally famous after a 10-minute video titled "Making the bus monitor cry" appeared online.
"Oh my God you're so fat," one youngster says to the bus monitor, whose identity was revealed as Karen Klein.
Forty-eight hours since it appeared, the video has gathered 3m views and 68,000 comments, and spawned an internet campaign to raise money to give Klein the "holiday of a lifetime" that has now raised nearly $500,000. Klein, meanwhile has appeared on Good Morning America, Today, and Fox and Friends on the back of the wave of revulsion the video has provoked.
And the residents of Greece – whose population of just under 100,000 is dwarfed by the numbers sharing, commenting and criticizing the schoolboys' actions – are as shocked as any of the online commenters or news channel talking heads.
"It's very friendly here. I don't see much crime around this area," said 25-year-old Katie Gillette as she loaded packages into her car outside the Tops supermarket, around half a mile from where most of the video's protagonists live.
For Gillette, who described the video as "just unreal", the schoolboy bullies need strong punishment.
"I would make my son do something for her and apologise. I mean, he's just two and a half right now, but I would make him mow her lawn for a while."
After four children were identified under the original YouTube video as being Klein's taunters, an address was procured through 4chan for one of them, Wesley Helm. On Thursday, Helm's father, Robert, apologised for his son's behaviour. "I would say I'm sorry. This is not the way I raised my kids. I never would in my wildest dreams think they were capable of this," Helm said in a TV interview.
There are plenty of lawns to be mown on Helm's street, where big, comfortable wood-panelled houses sit back from the road, freshly trimmed grass spanning the distance from pavement to property.
It's not a deprived neighbourhood. Most of the two-storey properties have two cars on the driveway, with double garages gaping open outside some, enabling that particularly American past-time of yardwork.
There was no sound, and no response at the Helm household, with doors and windows closed and curtains drawn. A basketball net stood unused on the drive, next to two SUVs.
Neighbours said up to three police cars had been parked outside the home on Wednesday evening and Thursday morning, but there was no police presence on Thursday night. One woman, who asked not to be named, said the residents of the Helm household were "not our sort of people". She had called the police four years ago after her house was "egged", suspecting that the eggs were hurled from the Helm's yard, but it was never proved.
One of the other boys, Brandon Teng, lives around a two-minute walk away, in a similar white-washed, two storey house. Like at the Helm household, there was a forlorn-looking basketball net outside the property. There was also no response.
Klein said on Thursday that she does not want to press charges against the four 13-year-olds named as her verbal abusers, but it will fall upon Greece Central School District to determine the punishment for the Athena Middle School students, which is likely to be a period of suspension.
Back at Tops, John Kier was among several people the Guardian spoke to who felt that the retribution was unlikely to be sufficient.
"We need to get them cleaning the bathrooms," said Caroline Klepacz, 47. "Back when I was a kid, you'd have been given a toothbrush and be cleaning the latrines."
Klepacz, who works with children with disabilities, said in addition to the lavatory cleaning the four involved "should have to ride the bus all summer long".
"They should have to be a bus monitor with this woman, and be bullied by kids that are younger than them."
Kevin Herrington, a 49-year-old painting contractor, thought that disrespect from children was "more prevalent nowadays".
"I'm sure our parents said the same thing about us," he said. "But I think as generations go on and on I think it's getting worse, I don't see it getting any better. Now again though, I've been around kids that age who are unbelievably respectful, but I've seen the other side too."
In some comments online there is much clamour for a return to corporal punishment, a return to the stronger chastisement of decades ago.
But in an era when antics can go from schoolbus to international audience in a matter of minutes, the children's names and addresses have aready been published, while they have witnessed international condemnation of their parents and received thousands of threats of violence.
Those involved may already have received a punishment harsher than any a school official could ever administer.
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