Bullied gay student who fired stun gun is expelled

VIDEO - A gay student who said he fired a stun gun in the air at school when bullies threatened him has been expelled, according to the school district...

MSNBC — A gay student who said he fired a stun gun in the air at school when bullies threatened him has been expelled, according to the school district.

Darnell “Dynasty” Young, a junior at Arsenal Technical High School in Indianapolis, may return to school in the district on Jan. 7, 2013, Indianapolis Public Schools said Tuesday in an e-mail statement.

Young, 17, said bullies hounded him daily. The harassment escalated on April 16, when a group surrounded him at school and threatened to beat him up, according to the Indianapolis Star.

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Young took the stun gun, which he had stashed in his backpack for a few weeks, and fired it off in the air. The students dispersed, but within minutes, school police had arrested Young, 17.

“My point was not to hurt anybody … the purpose was to back them off. I didn’t know what else to do,” he told msnbc’s NewsNation on Monday.

The district said it had accepted the decision of an examiner, who presided over Young’s hearing last week, to expel him.

“While the district does not condone bullying, it also does not allow weapons to be brought on our school campuses for any reason. Students who violate this rule will be held accountable,” Mary Louise Bewley, director of the district’s Office of School and Community Relations, said in the e-mail statement.

When reached by phone on Tuesday, Young declined to comment. His mother, Chelisa Grimes, said she couldn’t believe her son had been expelled.

“They really kicked him out,” she told the newspaper.

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