I think Dr. Phil is full of @$#%!!! Those girls needs to be locked up...what they did was malicious, pre-meditated and completely STUPID. They deserve whatever they get. Why should they get a second chance when they never even gave that poor girl ONE chance? Take them to jail, so they know the seriousness of their actions. Dr Phil thinks he can fix everyone and he just wants to be in the limelight. There is absolutely no excuse for his behavior in this matter. He needs to stick to what he does best...and I'm not sure what that is but it's not helping trouble people in the media i.e.Britney spears, florida girls. Have a real job and a real reason for waking up everyday. These girls deserve to be punished and I think anyone with two brain cells knows that.

The girls as well as the "look out" boys should be punished harshly. These boys should have known better. I'd be keeping my distance from those girls if I were one of them.
If you were the mother of the victim and your daughter gets beaten up to the point that she suffers vision and hearing loss; I would definitely see to it that those girls don't have any kind of fun for a long time.

I would love to be the judge and make examples out these low lifes and put them away in confinement for at least 6 months to a year. And, they need to work earning minimum wage and pay their victim majority of their earnings. What would be better than having these girls blessed with 6 daughters each in the future to worry about, huh?

Of course we all know "if it bleeds it leads". A comment referring to "blood-thirsty" media attempting to glamorize violence in hopes of getting good ratings whci can be unfair for the innocent, the victims. However, bullying has been a problem. These girls and boys must be made an example of for the horrific actions they have displayed. Granted I took no pleasure in watching a video clip of the incident, in fact I could feel the bile rise in my throat. If anything that video clip should be used as a teaching tool for parents and educators, community leaders and activists to find a way to help stop the violence. Parents need to pay attention to their teen-age children, educators can no longer turn a blind-eye to bullying, communinity leaders and activists need to collaborate and get in gear to provide services that can counsel not only the bullied, but also the bully. Bill Cosby once said that "hurt people hurt people".

There's already been a "COPYCAT" of this incident with 12 year old girls. I agree they all need to be jailed for no less than 6 months but if it were me... I'd take each one in a room and let 8 girls beat the crap out of each and every one of them; one by one.. including the 12 year olds and see if they're still laughing.. the little beotches deserve at least that.. low life scum of the earth is what they all are.

I for one am appalled about the conduct of these girls. Are we a society that trains & excuses such behavior(especially in girls)? The copycat effect should be a real worry for everyone and especially parents. The bullying has to stop. It is a well known fact that bullying kids turn into bullying adults. Where does all this insanity end? For the girls, they need to be punished and be made an example for what they did to that poor girl. The experience for the victim will never be forgotten along with the physical scars. Mental abuse like this will stay with her for the rest of her life. Should the abusers be allowed to live a normal life after this? NOT!...they have to be held accountable for their actions. Dr. Phil...get real. What were you thinking? Whether you bailed the ring leader out or it was one of the staff(yea, right, the public knows the truth!)....you are showing all of america that be a criminal and it's ok.,someone will bail you out. That is not helping youth to deal with issues. Doctors who are not doctors need to stay out of it. Let the real ones help out..stop saying you're helping when you are clearly making the situation worse.

The behavior of those girls and the lookouts are horrible, but how can you expect anything less when the mother of house it took place it blamed the victim. Stating she should not have come over there. YOU HAVE TO BE KIDDING ME. I love my children, and I am sure in their lives they will deal with confrontations, just as we all did growing up, but my kids know that is unacceptable behavior and it will not be tolerated. Its one thing to defend yourself, but to hold someone and refuse for them to leave, have everything planned for lookouts and a video to post on YouTube and then one of the teens mothers blame the victims. I hope that they have to go to boot camp. jail and I hope that victim sues each and every one of them so they can see just how cool they really are!

The video is one of the most disgusting things i have every seen! No one deserves to get beat like that no matter what trash talk they did on the internet! The thing is teenagers are hateful people and when you get a group of girls who have not been taight better it turns dangerous. The girl that got the "beat down" should be taught that cyber bullying is an issue and the girls and boys that were involved in the "beating" not only should they be harshly punished, but so should their parents! They learned this not having sympathy from some body and i imagine it started in the family household. Take the computers away, the cell phones and get back to the basics of life like it was when i was growing up! Believe me kids are hateful and this has to stop because it is just going to get worse and worse!

The fact that the mother blamed the victim for what the other girls did, leads me to wonder if she did these same things when she was young. What blows me away is the way some young mothers with small children think it is perfectly normal and okay for kids to hit on each other. They say,"thats just a normal way to play. Thats how we played when we were little and kids always fight when playing together." The same mothers brag in front of their children about how bad and tough they were and they beat up other girls or even fought with guys. Interesting enough,these same mothers have been in jail or on probation for fighting. Why would they want to encourage children to follow in their foot steps. Now this video will be available to the future children of these out of control, sick girls that think they are so bad and brag about it. Children need to be taught at a very young age to keep their hands too themselves and it is not okay to harm others in any way. Hitting others is not playing at all, it is abusive and will only grow more serious if not corrected. It's no wonder or surprise why their is so much violence in the schools and no respect is shown to others. It hasn't been taught and so they grow into the same kind of adults. God help this so called civilazation!!

I am glad you have spoken out against Dr. Phil's decision to do a story. How different is Dr. Phil from these girls had chosen to air this trash in the name of ratings. Isn't the aim of high ratings the aim to remain popular, famous and consequently your show stays on the air and you keep getting paid? The teenagers were not only were malicious, but they sought notoriety (their version of ratings) from all of this and the media is rewarding them with it.

Well first off, Dr. Phil should have his license as a "doctor" taken from him, AND the staff member should have been fired immediatley for the bail out of that animal mastermind! When I saw that video of that poor young girl being beaten, I literally got sick to my stomach. To this day I still can't get that horror out of my mind. I have cried and prayed for the innocent victim, but I have also prayed and will continue to pray for the extreme punishment of that group of scumbags! They deserve, in my opinion, 25 years to life, which is possible due to the fact that they are being charged (as they should) as adults. This vicious act was not only pre-meditated, it was considered fun and a big joke amongst these teen criminals! I pray that they suffer just as that poor girl has and will suffer for the rest of her life with the memory and physical scars of what happened! This case needs to set an example for our youth everywhere that this behavior is unacceptable and inexcusable! We as a civilized society MUST get the message out... You will be accountable for your actions and pay the price of losing your freedom. I say, lock em up and throw away the key. I can't imagine this happening to my 14 year old daughter, and I pray that girls' mother has enough love and strength to get her daughter through this in the best possible manner. God Bless that girl and her family, may they get the justice they deserve.

It says something to me, that the media and public focus on this incident. If they were boys, would the same degree of interest exist? You can be certain that such incidents among boys occurs and it happens more often than gathers media attention. Sugar and spice and everything nice....

Copycat Effect, maybe. Sure, the idea of protecting our children from seeing or being aware of acts of violance, especially by their peers and by proxy available to themselves, is a natural inclination. I'm sure it's a long-held practice and effective to a point.

Now, I'm no child phsycologist or anything, but isn't there a point reached that protecting kids from these images and the lessons we can learn from them kind of like protecting them from images of sex under the hopes that if they don't know anything about it, they won't do it? TV and media alone haven't lead to the increase in underage sex (or violance)... it's the adults unwillingness to discuss it, disguising their discomfort and avoidance of the topic in terms of trying to "protect" the children.

We do still teach kids that "knowledge is power" right? Don't we? I mean, if WE don't teach our kids about drugs, someone else will, right? So why shouldn't we teach our kids about youth violance and provide them with strong tools to prevent bullying, violance and activly promote responsible conflict-management?

Glorifying acts of violance is certainly not the best way to teach kids, but explicitly ignoring allready publicized events for fear of the "copycat effect" is just about the same as burying your head in the sand.

Youth violance and bullying has been going on for... well.. ever. Is it increasing? I don't know. Is the media giving us alarmist warnings about it? Yeah, and they're giving us more and more proof by publicizing events that would previously be swept under the rug and studiously ignored. So, as a parent or responsible adult, we either have to all get together collectivly and do hardcore censorship (which I don't recomend, both because I'm against hardcore cencorship AND because sometimes ignoring the event, by default, can seem like tacit permission) or we start talking to our kids about what the media is showing them and helping them find ways of defending themselves and diffusing conflict. As a person that faced bullying as a child I wish the adults had taken more responsibility to help me rather than ignore it and hope I learn something... like throwing me into shark infested waters and telling me "OK, time to learn how to swim"...

No, we don't have to coddle our kids, but we need to be aware and help them be aware of what they will face out there and as the people most responsible for getting them to adulthood, we need to give them better coping methods than just "ignore them and they'll stop bothering you"... because beleive me... they don't.
-Scarlet

I think Dr. Borba is getting a bit carried away, and that these suggestions are far-fetched. How can one rule out any type of violence, whatever the case, being put on the front page of a newspaper? Although what these girls did was deplorable, the fact that it is news is undeniable. The fact that the story may appear on television shows and in newspapers should not scare those who are afraid that their children will be influenced. It should provide the perfect opportunity to teach children why these actions are morally and legally wrong. The fact that these girls have been charged makes that opportunity all the more golden.

Some that disagree need to leave their caves, and recognize that in these times, in the violent and chaos-stricken world we live in, these topics will not and SHOULD not be avoided or ignored. If violence encompasses the world, why do you want your children to not be aware of that? After all, it is the world that they will one day live in, and must therefore be prepared for it. My mother did not hide media from me, she simply explained important details, and I walked away with many great lessons, allowing me to be the well-rounded, realistic person I am today.

Improvements can only begin when we stop fighting violence being on the front page of a newspaper, and start fighting violence

Thank God we're getting a voice of reason against the almight TV and ratings. Those of us that have to live in the real world can become victims of this crap when it gets copied and purpetrated again and again as an attention getting device.

Years ago, my now ex father-in-law told me that TV would be the ruin of this county. "How far fetched can that old man get!" I thought at the time. Dang, the old boy was right. What could be a tremendous instrument has become the undercutting of our society. Kids are being raised 'living room ferral' with only a TV for guidance on social norms. I'm not a Christian, in case you're wondering. I would be considered a liberal by any standard but I'm not stupid and even a blind person can see the effect our current priorities are having on the the younger generations.

You, Dr. Borba are a hypocrite of the highest level. You have done exactly what you reprimand Dr. Phil for attempting to do. YOU reported on the story of the child beating, YOU posted a link to the video. YOU, through your world wide internet access "promoted" the story. YOU did the same thing your "call to arms" in this article is about. So, YOU can do it but Dr. Phil can't since his medium is TV rather than internet? Where was your reprimand of the Today show (a nationally broadcasted program)for showing video and covering the story (that your link to the video came from)? I have no doubt Dr. Phil was also going to cover the story in the same manner your "steps" to preventing future crimes against others and how to talk to your children was layed out. I have no doubt he would have taken the sides of the victim and have the aggressors "own" their actions and how heinous it truly was. I have never seen Dr. Phil "glorify" anyone who victimized another. He would have reported the same way you did. But, he is wrong for attempting? Hypocracy at it's highest level. Shame on you for pointing fingers when you should have been pointing to yourself.
H. Reeves

Wow. Now that you mention it H. Reeves you are right. Dr. B. did exactly what she was arguing against. Everything about the story is available right on this page. How that isn't the same kind of ratings ploy she accuses Dr. Phil of is beyond me. Do what I say not as I do? Dr. B. can post it as learning but Dr. Phil must only want it for ratings? What's the difference and who can tell motivations? Especially if both are talking against the crime? I agree, shame on you Dr. B.

First off-yes, shame on Dr. Phil and his staff for giving these thugs the limelight. But shame on the doofuses who want to point fingers at each other and this Dr. Borba! Or who try to say if it was boys would it get this much attention.... Guess what-yes! There will never be an excuse for such brutality-and I think the parents of these little tramps should not only be sued for raising such hooligans, but put in jail too!

i am aslo casting shame on the Dr.there cant be an excuse for the malice.these kids are addicted to crime.

........................................

jim dunn

Florida Drug Rehab
Florida Drug Rehab/