The “ice bucket suspects” have been identified by police in Ohio. Last week, a video involving a 15-year-old teenage boy with autism went viral. In the sad and disturbing clip, the teenager gets a bucket of bodily fluids poured on him.
Parents of a child with autism, victim of the “Ice Bucket Prank” are getting closer to the suspects behind the horrific act being dealt with. On Tuesday, it was revealed that authorities now know the identity of the people behind the prank. They are not revealing the names of the suspects yet, because the investigation is still ongoing and they have more information to process. Bay Village, Ohio, Police Chief Mark Spaetzel told CNN:
“We are conducting a comprehensive investigation.”
The mother of the child with special needs, found the video on his phone and reported the matter to authorities on September 3. The family of the victim opted to make the video public, so it could spark a conversation on autism and bullying. The woman who is only identified as Diane in the media to protect the victim, said the boy was embarrassed by the incident. She explained to WJW-TV:
“He was embarrassed because he did not know what the contents were until afterwards and then he didn’t want anybody to know. They used his phone to tape it and they put it up on Instagram.”
In the video, the “ice bucket suspects” dumped cigarette butts, urine, spit and feces on the victim who was tricked into thinking that the prank was about raising awareness to the disease amyotrophic lateral sclerosis best known as ALS. The ALS Ice Bucket Challenge gained a lot of popularity in July and August after celebrities decided to start taking it and raising funds for research. A huge uproar followed the release of the video, with famous faces like Drew Carey, Jenny McCarthy and Donnie Wahlberg offering $10,000 each as reward to find the culprits. Spaetzel stated that the money is no longer needed, since the suspects have been identified.
Although, this incident has been called the “ice bucket challenge prank” in the media, some people say this a hate crime and it should be punished as such. With this logic the “pranksters” would be tried as adults and be sent to prison. According to experts, this scenario is very unlikely and the pranksters will probably get away with a slap on the wrist.
How should the Ice Bucket prank suspects be punished?
