Bullied teen arrested for taking stun gun to school

A bullied high school student in Indianapolis faces expulsion after going to school with a stun gun that his mother gave him for protection.

Darnell “Dynasty” Young, 17, said he raised the gun into the air and set off an electric charge after he was surrounded by a group of bullies threatening to beat him. The bullies fled and Young was arrested.

“I brought the stun gun ’cause I wasn’t safe,” Young told CNN’s Don Lemmon.

His mother Chelisa Grimes defended her decision to give Young the gun after school officials failed to do anything about his constant harassment. 

“I do not promote violence – not at all – but what is a parent to do when she has done everything that she felt she was supposed to do … at the school? I did feel like there was nothing else left for me to do, but protect my child,” Grimes said.

Meanwhile, officials at Arsenal Technical High School blamed the teen for bringing the bullying on himself by wearing effeminate clothing.

School principal Larry Yarrell said his staff repeatedly asked Young to “tone down” his flamboyant accessories.

“If you wear female apparel, then kids are kids and they’re going to say whatever it is that they want to say. … Because you want to be different and because you choose to wear female apparel, it may happen, Yarrell told the Indianapolis Star.

Young said it was unfair that he faces expulsion for firing the gun in the air as a warning while his bullies have not been punished. He said he “was at my wit’s end.”

“I didn’t know what to do and I thought about suicide,” Young told CNN “I hate saying that word because God blessed me with this life. I love life. I love my education. I would never … but this bullying got so bad that I thought about that.”