Story Archive

Strange Plastic Fruit

“You need to take that down. You need to take that down now,” said Harry McLelland, an employee of Rim of the World Unified School District, in the rural mountains of San Bernardino County, Calif. But he was just a maintenance worker and bus driver. Another driver — and friend of transportation coordinator Jennifer Kawell — had hung the black baby doll with a cord around its neck on a bulletin board in Kawell’s office. “As [the other driver] walked past me, I said, ‘That’s wrong in so many ways.’ And she just laughed.” McLelland says. When he complained to Kawell, she didn’t do anything either. The lynched doll remained dangling for nearly a week until a parent went to the office for paperwork, saw the doll, and complained to district headquarters. In a statement, superintendent Michelle Murphy said “there are employees involved in the incident that are no longer employed in the district.” Kawell, however, is still listed on the district’s website as transportation coordinator. (AC/Inland Valley Daily Bulletin) ...Let me guess: McLelland was fired for making trouble, right?