Sexton: This time, the school bullies were adults

The first run-through listening to the verbal assault directed at a 15-year-old high-school student was brutal.

Two grown men — one a highly respected teacher/coach and the other a police officer — excoriated this kid.

They berated and threatened him. F-bombs were dropped. Sophomoric and homophobic innuendo was used. The coach, Mike Muse of East Forsyth High School, when talking to Dillon Tschrnko in a menacing voice, referred to himself as "legally legit" and said that he would "take you and your parents for every ounce of money, house, home, whatever you got."

The cop, Officer James Deeney, injected the specter of vigilante justice administered by the kid's fellow students at East Forsyth.

It was classic bullying, perpetrated by adults who clearly should know better. They did it, they got caught on a digital recording — it's the 21st century, iPhones are everywhere, hello? — and now they must pay a penalty for their poor judgment.

The question is, how high a price?

Let's go to the tape

Using interrogation tactics known by any fool with basic cable and a working knowledge of bad cop shows, the big boys summoned Dillon to a "man-to-man (to man?)" talk at the grown-ups table in the East Forsyth lunchroom Jan. 19.

They were hacked off that Dillon was questioning their use of text messaging to communicate with a female student. Muse in particular was angered by the insinuation — real or imagined — that the texting may have been untoward.

"My thing to you is, I got no problems with you. I like you as a young person. I like you as a young man, but when you start effing with my career and you start effing with my personal life and you start effing with my chance to get a retirement and it can get out in the community and you're trying to damage my reputation, I don't sit kindly and take to that."

Minus the use of "effing," Muse raised a valid point. Insinuations and accusations can ruin lives and careers. He had every right to be upset.

Figuring out Deeney's angle wasn't difficult, either. He, too, had been texting the girl and, presumably, felt subjected to the same sort of scurrilous speculation.

In his portion of the interrogation, about minute 17 of the one-hour-five-minute-long tirade, Deeney mentioned his own role in an earlier incident in which he zapped a student with a Taser before getting to the heart of the matter.

Here's what the tape says.

"Here's the thing. If someone even alleges that Deeney's about to sleep with a student, you think I could be here? Do you think I'd be allowed to work here? Do you want to be that kid that has to come here every day? Because I'll go ahead and tell you, the kid involved with Mr. Stephens (a music teacher charged last month with taking indecent liberties with a male student), he can't come on the campus.

"You know why? There's a ton of kids that want to jump that student and beat the ever-living crap out of that student because Mr. Stephens was well-liked, well-loved."

Over the line

Without question, Muse has a well-deserved reputation for being a decent guy. He looks out for his players and students.

And when confronted about his barbaric behavior Wednesday night, he was appropriately chagrined. He admitted that he'd cussed a kid and that he knew he was in the wrong. He said he'd been disciplined, but the final word rests with Superintendent Don Martin and the members of the Winston-Salem/Forsyth County school board.

In theory, school officials could still opt to fire Muse. He's using the best blame-the-victim lawyer in town but still answered questions on his own.

Deeney, on the other hand, is not subject to disciplinary action by the schools. That can come only from the Kernersville Police Department through Chief Ken Gamble, who was just a tad testy Thursday when asked about the case.

"I resent that someone who is not in a position to make those judgments would attempt to," Gamble said, adding that his department would — and continues to — investigate one of its own.

Setting aside the notion that perhaps police shouldn't police themselves, the chief is still wrong. Any parent can see that what Deeney did crossed the line and that he shouldn't be allowed to work with kids.

That still leaves the question of what to do. A few recommendations:

The reservoir of good will Muse built up counts for something. Still, he should be made to take some unpaid time off and warned that if he comes within a country mile of berating another student, he's gone. And for good measure, he should write "I will not bully a kid" on a blackboard 100 times.

As for Deeney, surely there is a midnight shift in a patrol car in K-Vegas he could handle. An officer who lacks the sense (and self-control) not to hammer a 15-year-old could surely do with a few months of responding to calls about drunks and commercial burglar alarms.

Any zero-tolerance policy for bullies in schools should include the adults who should know better.