A ninth-grader in Louisiana didn’t want to return to school after he learned that some of his classmates had made fun of him by taking the electric wheelchair designated for him, riding around on it, and even making noises that supposedly mock the way he speaks, all as part of a senior prank.
Last week, students at Abbeville High School in Abbeville, Louisiana, about 20 miles south of Lafayette, engaged in a late-night senior prank. They gained access to the school after an employee provided them with two keys, and the teens entered the school and proceeded to film themselves wreaking minor havoc. They shouted, made a mess with toilet paper, and eventually located an electric wheelchair utilized by Tay’Shawn Landry, an ABH freshman who has cerebral palsy. Several students took turns on the wheelchair, driving it up and down the hallway. Some female students danced lasciviously on top of it, while a male student made noises that seemed to mock the speech of a disabled person as others nearby roared with laughter. Tay’Shawn was not present at the time.
Tay’Shawn’s mother, Kimberly Mitchell, took to social media to share various clips from the prank and to express her outrage at the carousing students’ insensitivity to her son’s feelings. “Sr. Pranks are fun and all but when you make fun of my disabled kid and his belongings then IT BECOMES MY PROBLEM!” Mitchell wrote on Facebook. “… As a mother, it hurt me to see my son upset and not wanting to go back to school because he took it as people making fun of him because he’s different. Step into his shoes and tell me how y’all would feel?”
In an interview with reporters, Tay’Shawn indicated that he felt humiliated by the prank and betrayed by his fellow students. “I was upset. I was mad. I was crying. I tried to stop myself from crying because I wanted to go to school. [I] couldn’t. I was just upset,” he said. “Some people that I go to school with and they want to turn their back on me and do this. That is not acceptable.”
Mitchell had stated in her Facebook post that she wanted the students involved in the prank to face “consequences,” but she later clarified in a lengthy statement that she wants such consequences only if the chair, which she valued at $15,000, was damaged during the revelry. Tay’Shawn and his family do not own the chair. It belongs to the school with the understanding that he alone will use it to help him move about on school property.
“His ambulation is horrible,” said one of Tay’Shawn’s grandmothers, Marilyn Mitchell. Tay’Shawn can take a few steps with the help of a walker, but his mobility is severely limited. “That chair gives him the freedom to feel somewhat normal to maneuver from place to place instead of struggling to walk with a walker or crawling,” Tay’Shawn’s mother confirmed.
Vermilion Parish School Board Superintendent Tommy Byler issued a statement regarding the incident, denouncing all instances of “disrespect to students with disabilities” and “behaviors that include damage to school property.” The statement added that the implicated students have apologized to Tay’Shawn but that they may be held liable if the chair has been damaged. The statement also hinted that the school employee who furnished the pranksters with keys may face “disciplinary actions.”
Kimberley Mitchell indicated that she harbors no hard feelings against the teens, but she does hope that they take other people’s feelings into consideration before playing jokes. “My son and I don’t hate nor dislike anyone affiliated with this situation,” she stated. “It was an eye opener experience for them. You don’t have to be a follower, Be a leader. Think further than what’s directly in front of you.
“Take it as a life learning lesson,” she continued. “Sometimes we think things are funny to us not knowing the damage it could do to someone else. One day in life you may be in my shoes raising or caring for someone with a disability. You may have to step up and be that person’s voice also. You never know what God has in store for your life.”
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