Bullies Dump Deaf Student’s Belongings In Toilet

Administrators at a Nebraska high school are investigating a case of bullying against a deaf student.

According to KMTV, Alex Hernandez, a deaf student at Burke High School in Omaha, Nebraska, asked school administrators for help when his backpack, filled with a number of important personal belongings, went missing.

The search was unsuccessful until administrators asked security to review surveillance footage, in which they spotted to male students walk off with the bag. Hernandez says he didn’t know either of the students.

The students took the backpack into the school’s bathroom, where they dumped the bag and its contents into the toilet. Inside the bag were Hernandez’s school supplies and homework, as well as a tablet, his debit card, and his cochlear implant, without which he cannot hear.

“Those students think it’s okay to bully a deaf student, but it’s not,” Hernandez told KMTV. “It’s not okay to bully someone who is disabled, deaf or hard of hearing. Or anyone for that matter.”

Hernandez says that he has been deaf since he was one-year-old and that he has been the target of bullying because of his condition throughout his life. He says that the latest incident makes him feel unsafe going back to school.

“This just got out of hand,” he said. “There’s too much bullying, too much drama, too much fighting, it’s just not nice.”

The teen says that what upset him most about the incident was that his English project was ruined after he put in a lot of work on it.

“I was very upset because I know I work really hard on my project and homework because I just want to make my mom to be happy and know that I did a good job on the homework,” he said.

According to the Omaha World Herald, Burke High Principal Steven Scraggs wrote in a letter to parents at the school that the backpack was left unattended at a lunch table and that “The students who stole the backpack were unaware of the contents of the backpack or that the owner of the backpack was hard of hearing.”

Scraggs added, “Sadly, this is not unusual to find missing backpacks, without their valuables, in the restrooms or trash bins since those locations are out of the sight of cameras.”

Hernandez was able to retrieve some of his belongings from the bag, but some items were damaged from being inside the toilet.

Following the incident, members of the community launched a GoFundMe page to raise money for Hernandez to replace his damaged belongings. Fellow students voiced their support for Hernandez on social media.

Sources: KMTV, The Omaha World-Herald / Photo Credit: KMTV