A “senior prank” at a Louisiana high school went way too far and now one the student’s mom is calling everyone out so they can be held accountable and face consequences.
Kimberly Mitchell’s son Tay’Shawn Landry is a 9th grader at the school. Last Thursday, kids from a different grade decided to participate in a senior prank in which students mocked Tay’Shawn who has cerebral palsy and requires a motorized wheelchair. In the videos, a group is seen in the school covering a hallway in toilet paper. Others are seen stacking desks and chairs on top of each other. However, a few kids were also filmed riding around in a wheelchair. Specifically one video shared by the mother shows a student in Tay’Shawn’s chair appearing to mimic his speech and make squealing noises while another person records and laughs. Tay’Shawn’s wheelchair had been in a classroom at the time that the students entered the school, an official with the Vermilion Parish School System said.
In a fiery Facebook post, Mitchell said the group “played with the wrong child and the wrong mama” and “there will be consequences. Sr. Pranks are fun and all but when you make fun of my disabled kid and his belongings then IT BECOMES MY PROBLEM,” the angry and heartbroken mother wrote. Speaking with @klfy_10, Tay’Shawn said, “I was upset. I was mad. I was crying. I tried to stop myself from crying because I wanted to go to school. [I] couldn’t. I was just upset. He continued, “Some people that I know. Some people that I go to school with and they want to turn their back on me and do this; that is not acceptable.”
Marilyn Mitchell, one of his grandmothers, also spoke with the outlet and shared how upset she was that this happened to her grandson.
“His ambulation is horrible,” Marilyn said. “He never stood. He had never walked in his life. He has been crawling, and then after the month of the surgery, he was trying to ambulate. Now he has scoliosis making it even harder for him to move around,” she explained to the news outlet. “Let them see how it is to be on that floor on that cement going back and forth. Just how they were riding and closing whatever. See that pain. See the agony. See the frustration of disability people.”
Tay’Shawn’s other grandmother added, “With doing something like this, a prank of this nature, his mentality status,” Clarice said. “In the time frame of them doing this to Tay’Shawn and all what he has been through can play a role in his mental status. With everything that’s going on in the world today with the kids, we don’t know how it’s going to affect him in the long term.”
Superintendent Tommy Byler has released a statement on the incident to explain that he is fully aware of the situation.
“On Friday, videos became available via social media that the students gained access into a locked room that housed an electric wheelchair on loan to an AHS student that uses it during the school day,” Byler wrote. “Multiple students were seen riding through the halls on the wheelchair and displayed actions that were insensitive and disrespectful to students with disabilities,” he continued. In the lengthy statement, Byler also said that the students who had participated in the videos had apologized to Tay’Shawn.
Byler went on to note that that the matter remains under investigation and said “necessary disciplinary actions” could come from the results of the school’s findings.
Press Play Below For More: