Posted on 02/16/2017 12:28:44 PM PST by simpson96
A former Dairy Queen manager has been charged with involuntary manslaughter, accused of bullying a high school worker who committed suicide just days before Christmas, authorities said.
Harley Branham, 21, made her first court appearance Tuesday in connection with the death of Kenny Suttner, 17, who shot himself outside his family’s home on Dec. 21 in Glasgow, Missouri.
Red: Family of Teen Who Killed Himself After Being Bullied at School Considers Wrongful Death Suit: 'You Failed Danny'
She did not enter a plea. She was released on $25,000 bail. A preliminary hearing is scheduled for May. Her attorney, Jeff Hillbrenner, said his client feels badly about Suttner’s death, The Associated Press reported.
The boy’s family released a statement Tuesday saying, “It is long overdue that the issue of bullying be brought to light.”
On Jan. 31, a six-person coroner’s jury found Branham was the principal cause of the teen’s suicide. She was charged the next day with second-degree involuntary manslaughter.
Several co-workers testified Branham had treated Suttner badly and forced him to perform demeaning tasks such as cleaning the floor while lying on his stomach, according to the Columbia Daily Tribune.
(Excerpt) Read more at msn.com ...
In a sane world this would go nowhere.
Maybe if they can prove she intended to drive him to kill himself, but that is rather difficult to prove.
This is really stupid. Seriously.
This seems like it is ripped from L&O as a classic Jack McCoy squirrel case.
I feel bad for the kid but I know of no possible REAL application of law that would punish a work manager for being too hard on someone. Even a kid can quit a job.
It is just like I don’t understand “cyber-bullying”: If you stay off sites where it occurs you won’t feel it, will you? If people were saying the worst most vile things about me on FB or Twitter or whatever it wouldn’t bother me b/c I wouldn’t know.
And we all know about the CREVO wars here... ;)
I’ve had worse bosses than that. I’m in culinary school and been bullied by lab assistants 30 years my junior for dropping lettuce on the floor!
If suicide is defined as "taking one's own life", then how can Branham be the PRINCIPAL cause. And under what slavery rights did Dairy Queen have over this employee that he couldn't just say "F-Off" and walk off the job?
To call this an over-reach is a gross understatement.
Lets explain to the snowflakes that this is their best path to impeachment!
This is idiotic. You are responsible for your own actions, no one else. This individual had many options, including qutting to work somewhere else. This is more of the liberal BS that people are not responsible for their own actions. What’s next, robbers get off because someone bullied them into robbing a bank or store. This is the liberal world.
Good question.
The challenge for the prosecution is to try to get past the fact that the fatal act was self inflicted. Unless they can prove some sort of mind control ray, this is ludicrous on the face of it.
They are channeling Judge Robarts.
“I’m in culinary school and been bullied by lab assistants 30 years my junior for dropping lettuce on the floor.”
Five second rule!
Maybe he needed the job and thought he couldn’t get another one. Surely you’re not in favor of sadists humiliating teen fast food workers and driving them to the point of killing themselves, are you?
Is it too late for me to sue my Drill Sergeants from Army Basic Training? They were REALLY MEAN to me and called me, ‘Maggot’ and a whole host of other mean stuff!
*SNIFFLE*
I’m sorry this kid wasn’t mentally equipped for EVERY DAY LIFE. I say she counter-sue the parents for raising such a weakling. I’d also look into it further to see if it was a case of unrequited love. 17 year old boys get crushes on older women.
See? Those Drill Sergeants, in turn, made ME into one mean sonuvabeotch...who thinks things through for herself. ;)
*SMIRK*
Note to self: stay outta dairy fag. It's full up with crazy.
Darwin: survival of the fittest. The girl was a cun# and the kid was weak and pathetic. If he could not take a little hazing he was never going to make it far in life.
“Five second rule!”
LOL! Yeah. That worked real well for Chipotle, LOL!
Gotta be kidding me. I worked in my dad’s restaurant from age 13 to 18 and saw a lot worse than that. Working there was the best thing I ever did even though I didn’t think so at the time.
He would’ve jumped off the training building the 3rd day of boot camp. Blaming his suicide on this manager is ridiculous. I can’t believe this snowflake’s parents are buying this. Oh wait, they’re on board so that they don’t have to face their own parenting fails, got it.
It makes more sense to charge his parents? Did they make him get this job? Did they insist that he keep his job? Are they divorced? Didn’t they teach him anything about life and his freedom to quit this job?
The girl has poor management and stress management issues. If she wants the job bad enough, this can be assisted with the proper training. I do not think this manager should be charged with murder, not even involuntary manslaughter.
The problem was within the young man. If he was having a hard time, he should have either told someone about it, as with his parents, or he should have quit that job and looked for another.
Some folks are raised in a manner that leaves them vulnerable to every little smirk or imaginary sarcasm they believe to be seeing in other people. Too delicate for the world unless they make a choice to leave that weak character behind in the family scrapbooks. The parents want to blame someone. Blaming and scapegoating will not change what happened. Sad that this boy could not have opened up to anyone on how badly he felt. Someone at home was negligent to have left a gun where it was accessible to him.
Anything I drop on the floor, I stuff in my pocket (like Sabrina in the movie). The lab assistants even go through the garbage to find out if a student wasted an ingredient. This manager should have been fired for throwing cheeseburgers!
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