Council says farewell to Jones, Hanisee

Tommy Harvey was sworn in to replace Larry Hanisee on the Bossier City Council. Harvey replaces Hanisee on his 2nd attempt at the office. Hanisee served previously and was elected the last time to fill the term of Chubby Knight. I have every confidence that Councilman Harvey will serve his consituents well.
Jeff Free has some big shoes to fill. He replaces David Jones, who decided to step down after 16 years. I believe he will do well.
Bossier City is all about growth and infrastructure, and the council has done the job. There have been criticisms for some individual projects, but on the whole the city is not only keeping up, but is ahead of the curve.
David Jones has been a key player in infrastructure, probably more so than any other individual council member. He also fought hard to keep Public Safety funded at a good level, and tried to get raises for unclassified city employees. Well deserved raises, by the way.
He deserves a thank you from the citizens of Bossier City for a job well done.
I'm not ignoring Larry Hanisee, he also deserves thanks for serving, he just didn't have the time to achieve very much in this abbreviated term.
It hasn't been all roses and rainbows, however. What I consider to be the council's biggest mistake was the Walker Place debacle. I think it could have worked out early and amicably, but pride and egos got involved and it ended up in a (pardon my language) pissing contest that the council was destined to lose. Maybe if faced with a similar situation in the future, the council will act in a more prudent manner. 
As Kenny Rogers said, 'you have to know when to hold them, and know when to fold them'.
Overall, the City is in good hands.

Bullying trial takes on new significance

The bullying trial of Jason Thomas has been dragging on for a couple of years now in Bossier District Court.  Thomas was originally charged with cyber bullying against Danielle Cox, a minor.

‘ur not important’

On January 24^th, 2011, one of Danielle’s friends had posted Danielle’s number on Facebook and asked that her friends text her and tell her not to kill herself. Rather than offering help, the state alleges that Thomas used a program called ClamTXT to send multiple messages to Danielle’s phone, each purporting to come from a different person. The messages read ‘I won’t miss u’, ‘ur not important’ and ‘just end it all’.

On January 25^th Danielle ingested an excessive amount of medication in a suicide attempt. She survived.

In February Thomas was arrested on the Cyber Bullying charge. On May 20^th, 2011, Danielle did kill herself. The charge was amended to Criminal Assistance to Suicide.

There will be a status hearing on Tuesday to see if the case is ready to go to trial. I’ll keep everyone posted on that. 

I’m not going into any detail on the most recent bully related suicides, but will note that both occurred very recently.

Two more students are victims

In light of two more suicides that are bully related, this case does take on new significance. What I’m about to say isn’t accusatory, but facts are facts. 

A bad problem exists, and it is centered around South Bossier, Elm Grove Middle School and Parkway High School.  The Parkway band can’t make overnight trips for the next two years because of an incident that happened in April. Eight band members simulated a sex act on a freshman boy against his will as the students were walking to the bus. That is co-incidental to the suicides, and not nearly as serious, but it does reflect the culture that exists where bullying seems to have some acceptance.

Part of the solution

Obviously, something has to be done. As I said, I’m not being accusatory and blaming the schools for children killing themselves; I’m not saying that the schools are the cause of the problem.

However, they certainly need to be part of the solution. Something has to be done, and it will take people uniting and forcing action.

We’ll delve into this deeper in the weeks to come. Meanwhile, to find out more, you can go to Facebook and check out these two pages:

Smiles for Danielle

South Bossier Anti-BullyingCoalition

Something has to be done, and it will take people uniting and forcing action.

Funny Bone Guy wants to turn me in to the FBI

If you have followed the blog at all, you have doubtless seen comments on several threads from someone we have identified as the ‘Funny Bone Guy’. As I told him, and will repeat again, I have no knowledge whatever of the incident he is talking about. Apparently he feels he was mistreated by BCPD, and alleges a cover-up going all the way up to the Mayor’s office.
I finally started moderating comments so that he couldn’t disrupt everything that was posted. He has left some comments, which I have not published. Here they are, all in one blog post.
Comment from Normal Person: Funny bone guy please go away. Your now telling another story about BCPD that does not make any sense. No one believes you. Why can’t you get that?
Reply from Funny Bone Guy: I would tell the cops name, but he wants to be my friend and I don't care who thinks I am telling the truth. You know I'm Not the Detective no one wanted to work with. You should have never said anything about your imaginary friend Timmy. And if I am not honest why does the mayor hide from. You know ***** you could put your trailer house in my Den.
Reply from Funny Bone Guy: I don't care if you believe me or not, you probably know the cop ***** or *****. I know one of the Detectives told me you didn't go to work with ******** by choice.
Reply from Funny Bone Guy: I can tell your a pig. Your right the BCPD has no officers that lie, falsify police reports, right BJ never, arrest the wrong person, on purpose, because of public pressure, shoot and kill and unarmed man that has bipolar, instead of jumping back into their police car. other than those things, they are perfect. I am in talks with the Department of justice, and I think they are going to help me, with those Honest, Christian BCPD employees did I say Christian
So I made a joke at one point in a misguided attempt to lighten it up.
Jim: It’s like the thing I saw on Facebook: Chuck Norris got pulled over one time. He let the cop go with a warning.
Reply from Funny Bone Guy: why is that so many people say you suck as a DA?
(I have no idea what that means)
Comment from Normal Person: Good blog.
Reply from Funny Bone Guy: The Mayor sure protects the BCPD on Police Week
And now the final reply from Funny Bone Guy on my weak Chuck Norris joke: 
Reply from Funny Bone Guy: Jim I checked on what you said about getting one email, I have about 12 emails that I sent you during the funny bone charges, Looks like you are going to get to talk to the justice dept also. 
Remember, these are comments from Funny Bone Guy that were not published. After the last one, I decided I just had to do this blog post.
I have checked back and only find one email, which was a copy of a letter to Mayor Walker demanding that everyone involved be given a polygraph test.
Okay, I don’t remember them, but lets pretend that I did have more over the last couple of years and just didn’t consider them something I was interested in. That happens sometimes, although I generally answer all of my emails.
Just to clarify this with Funny Bone Guy – you say I got emails from you, I say I don’t recall them, so you are going to turn me in to the Federal authorities for that? What? 
Funny Bone, you really are a special kind of special, aren’t you?
(I am opening up comments again, but I will delete any comment that makes slanderous remarks about anyone, or names any names of police officers who can’t speak out to defend themselves from attacks.)