I stand by my statement. While I felt gratified to see him do what he did, it was in retaliation. Of course Casey had every right to defend himself, but his actions were not defensive. Nor was Casey's life in danger while that little pipsqueak's life was. It is fortunate that his back wasn't broken, or at the very least, his pelvis.
The school was almost definitely at fault for not addressing the problem before it came to what we saw (I would say definitely but I wasn't around for all the other instances nor any reporting of them or responses to reports, etc., so I cannot convict them on my assumptions,) but they responded correctly in this instance.
We recently had a fight at our school that was caught on video. One girl attacked another. The other girl tried to hold the first girl off. When she couldn't, she pushed the attacker. When the attacker came at her again, she swung. The first girl was expelled. The second was not. Even so, there was an uproar among the students about how unfair it was that A was expelled while B wasn't even suspended, and one of my students said, when she was late for my class because she had to go threaten another student that "Nobody could do her nuthin' cuz B wasn't suspended." But I digress.
I don't believe in jury nullification. Nor do I accept the battered wife syndrome defense. I think the b*stards deserve to die and as an individual I might condone what the wives have done, but I don't think that society should ever condone murder. By the same token, I don't think violence should be institutionally condoned no matter how justified we as individuals might think it is.
In the case of one child retaliating after another has kicked him in the groin, off the record, I would do what IADad did. As an adult on the playground, I would probably pretend I didn't see the retaliating kick. But if another kid saw that I saw, or if I were confronted by witnesses to what happened, I would, as the enforcer of order, have to address it.
My point is that sometimes we are driven to go against what we know is acceptable. But we have to understand that there are consequences to our actions. If the results of our actions are not worth the consequences, then we should not act. If they are worth the consequences, we should accept those consequences. I'm saying the results of Casey's actions are worth the consequences, and he, and we, should accept them. He knows he is finally vindicated and I'll bet he'd do it again even knowing that he'd be suspended. I don't think he will be bothered again. And, hopefully, that little sh*t has learned his lesson for life.