Posted on 02/15/2004 6:46:32 AM PST by Non-Sequitur
ROANOKE, Va. — The two-lane bridge that Ron Mayfield Jr. came to the morning of his death stands almost 200 feet above the waters where his father took him fishing as a boy.
Years later, he spent hours there with his own son, casting for catfish and perch.
He made two final calls on his cell phone that morning, gasping out a farewell to his wife and dialing 911 without saying a word. Then he lay the phone beside the road and straddled the knee-high metal bridge railing.
At an hour when the school day was just getting started six miles away at Woodrow Wilson Middle School, Mayfield leaned sideways and let go, falling into the river.
The note he left tucked in the Bible, on the front seat of the car he left properly parked in the rest area by the bridge, began this way: “I am so sorry for what I have done, but there is no way I could carry on, absolutely no way.”
The apology was for taking his own life. He had no need to apologize for what drove him to his death, because Mayfield knew it was untrue.
A student at Woodrow Wilson told authorities that he had been assaulted by Mayfield, 55, who taught English to non-native speakers. Mayfield denied it, but his word, his reputation and his spotless record weren't enough. He had been suspended, and police were called in to investigate.
What Mayfield didn't know as he mounted the bridge that morning was that police had cleared him of wrongdoing.
No national statistics are kept on the number of false accusations that students make against teachers, but experts have said the evolving culture of the classroom has caused the number of reports of abusive teachers to increase in the last 15 years. A study in Great Britain found that 1,782 allegations of abuse by teachers resulted in 96 prosecutions.
“There is a culture now where students know how to get rid of a teacher, they know how to get a teacher removed from a classroom,” said Greg Lawler, general counsel for the Colorado Education Association.
Lawler said the change occurred after states began requiring schools to report alleged abuses by teachers because “stuff was being swept under the rug.”
When he took the education association job 17 years ago, Lawler said, he spent 30 percent of his time defending teachers accused of criminal acts. Accusations have increased so dramatically that he and another lawyer now work full time defending teachers, he said.
Mayfield's friends and family said they are struggling to understand how a man who never had as much as a traffic ticket and no history of depression or mental illness could be driven to such despair.
“So many of us are at a loss to comprehend what level of loneliness and isolation he was feeling to drive him to such a tragic end,” said Anita Price, president of the Roanoke Education Association. “It is hard to just even begin to fathom how someone could feel so totally alone and isolated.”
The flow of the waters where Mayfield fished as a boy and a man is controlled by a dam. The waters were slowed the morning after his death, lowering the river level to aid in the search for his body. A National Park Service ranger found it about 11 a.m., caught on rocks normally beneath the water.
At his funeral, a student gave the family a letter. It said: “He taught us how to be courteous and polite like he was. I would never forget what he taught us. Thanks for being a great teacher, Mr. Mayfield.”
I want you to consider that a truly twisted soul of a man can appear good to the outside yet wait like a bird of carrion turning high circles in the cold afternoon sky for an opportunity of utter rotteness below. Here in a moment that man -- whoever the h*ll he was -- a teacher or a trapper, can spike the whole lifetime of a young boy and his family with the most poisoned of spikes -- a long-acting poison that cripples its target and takes years and years to kill.
How many years will that boy suffer the poisons, and all about him that the one man in a few seconds shafted him with? The boy's false accusation, that could have been more easily forgotten thing, a odorous burp of a baby of a young man, improperly digesting the stuff of a young man's life. In time the reputation of the teacher and the boy would have come to be founded on more sure ground, the spurious allegation a mere hardly remembered footnote.
That was not to be. With one step -- off into death -- a vile man has ruined not only his own life and those around it, but made permanent and evilly deep the scar in a boy's psyche.
Think about that, please.
With one absolutely evil step the "teacher" mocked every good teaching he ever taught. Undid every lesson.
The causation argument, as it applies to the Brame case is more complex, and while that gives it somewhat more validity there than here, it doesn't get anywhere near the root of the matter. This teacher's tolerance of conflict or controversy was extremely low - he snapped rather easily. But he was not in a position of immense trust or responsibility.
In Brame, the person was the police chief of a major U.S. city -- an extremely high level of maturity, responsibility and psychological stability is demanded, and rightly so. So while Brame might well have been given more impetus by his circumstances and the long history of interplay between himself and his wife, Brame's failure -- Brame's own fault, if you will, was even greater than this person's here. The failure was entirely Brame's -- because so much more must be expected of him than of the everyday Joe. Others don't share Brame's guilt...whether his wife or the city or the taxpayers. Because it is right to expect a police chief to uphold a much higher standard of responsibility than, well, just about anyone.
You miss the possibility that in the current school climate, the student may see it as a badge of honor that he has knocked off a teacher. It may make him a gang leader to be looked up to by other students.
Tell me, what are the legal penalties for a minor making a very serious false accusation ??
And, tell me, what does the law say are sufficient grounds to revoke a visa, or resident alien status ??
I may misinterpret what you say -- but you seem to want to do nothing.
As an aside, since this kid is disabled and in a wheel chair -- I'd like to know how much public assistance (SSID) and other forms of welfare this family is receiving.
I'm not bigoted, I'm practical. I say we take the easiest punitive measures we can against this kid. Happens every day in this country, prosecutors go after the easiest offense to prove.
Is is moral (as opposed to 'legal', that tax paying Americans should subsidize this family's existence here.
Of course, that's more speculation on my part -- but, maybe we could get the Roanoke papers to do a little more research for us.
And why can't these people speak English - it is the official language of their native coutnry.
I'd like to know the basis of their immigrant status here -- what skills do they have, are they claiming asylum -- their names are Muslim.
Unable to speak English, it seems their economic viability is limited.
Yeah - the more we look at it with any perspective at all.... the more out of whack his response is.
What serious accusation?
But, I don't know whether the teacher was unusually sensitive or had other issues. Apparently, he spent a great deal of time in Japan. By contrast, the suicide rate for reasons of "honor" in Japan are much higher than in western cultures.
Maybe Mayfield was indoctrinated culturally to some Japanese ethic of honor.
Doesn't matter.
What we need to focus on is what the kid did -- the kid made a very serious FALSE accusation. Should he be punished, if so -- how ??
I guess you can debate how serious it really was -- but, it was enough to get Mayfield suspended from the classroom he apparently loved very much.
That is exactly what I debate. This was not a life-ending accusation, that Mayfield inexplicably ended his life over. The whole thing is a tragedy, and not one that a middle school student could foresee when he accused or recanted.... It was a conflict that the student might have thought debatable.
Your focus on the student's immigration status and welfare status as somehow relevant is questionable and thread hijacking. Pet-issue folks love to do that, but there are better threads where immigration as an issue actually makes sense.
I'm not protecting him, I'm attacking YOU.
They are often meaningless in the court of public opinion, where we all live. O.J. Simpson was found innocent by a court of law and Clinton was found innocent by the Senate, yet look at how often they are held accountable as if guilty on this forum.
Personally, I think Mayfield's act was extreme, but that should have no basis on assessing the seriousness of the kid's own offense.
Every headline screams to me that the Roanoke community viewed the accusation of assault very seriously:
His reputation sullied, teacher commits suicide
False accusation leads to tragedy
Ronald Lee Mayfield Jr., 55, had been accused of assaulting a student
If an accusation "sullies" a teachers reputation, results in his suspension from his classroom, I consider that a serious accusation.
And, because I view it as a serious accusation, one that was false, based on a lie -- I believe the kid should be punished. And severely. I take no pity on his disabled status, the school system apparently did not consider they knew his was a troublemaker when they suspended Mayfield.
They could have said, this kid is a troublemaker, let's give Mayfield every benefit of the doubt while we investigate. But, they didn't. The school system went whole hog from the outset because they too considered it a serious accusation.
If the easiest way it to expel him and his family from the country, then I don't see that as hijacking the immigration issue. Everyday in America prosecutors take the easiest path to a meaningful sentence they can. This case is no different in that respect.
However, now that we've learned about this family -- I think its fair to review why they're here, and whether they are contributors to our society, or they're here only as beneficiaries and a burden to taxpaying Americans.
What is bigoted or unfair about that ??
There are about 4 Billion poor people in the world, trying to save all of them will lead to our own demise -- that's just a practical fact.
What do you wanna do about the kid -- nothing ??
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