GREECE, N.Y. – An online fundraiser designed to raise $5,000 to send a bullied bus monitor on a nice vacation has brought in more than 100 times that amount and turned the grandmother of eight into the media star of the moment.

  • By Jamie Germano, Gannett
    Bus monitor Karen Klein talks during an interview Wednesday at her Greece, N.Y., home about being verbally abused by middle school students.

By Jamie Germano, Gannett
Bus monitor Karen Klein talks during an interview Wednesday at her Greece, N.Y., home about being verbally abused by middle school students.



But the exposure has a darker side, too: At one point Thursday, emails were pouring into Greece Athena Middle School Principal Dave Richardson's inbox at a rate of more than 30 a minute. Thousands were furious and sometimes threatening, directed at Richardson and other officials in the Greece Central School District and the town of Greece. Death threats and other harassment were directed at students alleged to have participated in the incident.
Between Wednesday night and Thursday afternoon, Richardson received more than 4,000 electronic missives from around the world decrying the horrid behavior of a few of his students, captured on video Monday taunting and teasing 68-year-old bus monitor Karen Klein with tirades of cruel, profane invective.


The video, posted to YouTube early Wednesday, set off an Internet maelstrom that generated hundreds of notes of support for Klein and raised more than $500,000 as of midday Friday. The YouTube video hits also had grown exponentially, reaching nearly 4 million views by noon Friday.
Max Sidorov, the 25-year-old Canadian man who started the fund drive on the site Indiegogo.com started with modest goals. In an interview with the National Post newspaper in Canada, the kinesiologist and nutritionist said he was astonished at the generosity of complete strangers.
"It is ridiculously more than I expected," Sidorov said. "I just had an idea. It's the people who took it and ran with it."
Klein was up at 6 a.m. EDT Thursday to make the television rounds with interviews on Good Morning America, the Today show, Fox & Friends and others. Her story drew crews to a Thursday news conference attended by local and national media.
Klein said the whirlwind outpouring has been overwhelming and heartening.
"I want to thank everybody for so much kindness," she said.
The response ran from touching to commercial. A Rochester, N.Y.-area barbecue joint even offered free pork sandwiches to bus monitors.
"We are obviously as emotional as everyone else who has watched this horrible and disturbing video," said Barbara Deane-Williams, superintendent of Greece schools in a Rochester suburb. "As a mom, I can assure you, however, that the enraged response directed at these students and my staff is equally as unsettling. Expressing hatred is not an effective way to resolve this."
The names of some of the alleged perpetrators — all juveniles who have yet to be charged with any crimes — and their parents and details about where they live ended up online. And since Wednesday, they've been barraged by death threats and harassing phone calls.
Greece police Capt. Steve Chatterton said Thursday that someone even made a false 911 call claiming people were being held hostage inside one of the students' homes. He said officers have been assigned to run special patrols down the youths' streets to ensure their safety.
"We have a cell phone of one of the boys and he's received more than 1,000 missed calls and more than 1,000 text messages threatening him," he said. "Threats to overcome threats do no good."
Chatterton said police were investigating the threats, as well as the bullying behavior against Klein that was captured on video. But, he said, it's unlikely criminal charges would be filed because Klein has said she did not want to press charges. He said the students have owned up to their behavior to police and "none has denied their accountability."
Klein told CNN that none of the youths have apologized to her personally.
A middle school student not involved in the bus harassment incident also has been swept into the fury.
Theresa Warren said that since her son — who doesn't ride the bus where the incident took place — was falsely accused Wednesday in online postings, he's been harassed incessantly on Facebook and received death threats. And strangers calling her workplace have told her employer she should be fired for being such a bad parent.
"This is going too far," she said. "This is no better than the kids who did that on the bus."
Klein, who did not report the students' bad behavior to her supervisor as district protocol requires, called for people who are angry about what happened to stop harassing the students.
"I feel kinda bad for them and their families because of what's going on," she said. "They're being harassed terribly and I don't like that. I don't want any harm to come to them."
But Klein said the children should be punished.
Assistant Superintendent Deborah Hoeft said school officials have to abide by state law when handing out student discipline and any action greater than a five-day suspension would require that the students have due process before a hearing examiner. That examiner would recommend an appropriate punishment to Deane-Williams.
Hoeft also made a call for more civility about the matter.
"I cannot condone the vigilante justice that some are calling for," Hoeft said. "We all need to take a step backward and look at the way we treat each other."