SHAWANO, WI- Shawano Police and Shawano School District are investigating an assault at Shawano Middle School that took place on Monday.

The community became outraged when a video that was taken by a student was made public.

The video shows a student walking up to another student and striking that student multiple times in the head, including in the face, while the student was sitting, facing away from the attacker.

The video has caused outrage because it appears it was planned as the video was started long before the attack took place.

The district has since released a statement by Superintendent Kurt Krizan.

A student was involved in assaulting another student at the middle school. The incident was handled immediately. The student was not seriously physically injured and returned to school today, yet we have zero tolerance for any violence in our schools. This incident is under investigation, in collaboration with the Shawano Police Department. We are following the School District’s established disciplinary procedures and we are following up with all involved individuals.

Additionally, we became aware of a social media post about the incident through a parent email to the superintendent. We applaud the parent for emailing us, and we encourage all students and parents to contact any trusted adult in the school system if they ever have any concerns.

Our highest priority is for the safety of all students and staff and keeping our schools a safe place to learn and work. We will take any perceived or real threat seriously.

Parents, guardians and family members: please help your children know that they can safely report any suspicions they have or seek help from all adults at school. Also, please alert them that any actions that threaten our school environment will be taken very seriously by school administration.

“We want to make sure that the students and staff all feel safe,”says Shawano Police Lieutenant Mike Musolff.  “We can assure the public that police and school administration are actively working on this.”

Musolff says bullying has been an ongoing issue and parents recently learned that when they were made aware of the Instagram account that shows a half dozen fights that took place at Shawano Middle School. Some parents expressed on social media that they were unaware that their child was attacked.

“Bullying can be both physical and emotional, but a lot of time, verbal bullying can be worse because it tends to be constant over time, but the problem with a lot of these bullying situations is that law enforcement and administration do not find out right away.”

People have expressed their frustration on social media with posts calling for swift action to be taken.

“The child who was the attacker should be expelled.”

“Shawano School District needs to make a 100% no bullying policy.

“This is just disgusting.”

One parent in particular, Angela Irving says she knows the student who was attacked in the video and the family.

“All these students stood around, nobody did anything, that just blows my mind,” she said. “Are our teachers just becoming numb because this is happening so much?”

She says she is concerned about the future for these kids who are in this kind of environment.

“This kind of environment can put our kids in a war-type self defense mode and make them always on guard.”

Musolff says in this case, police were not notified until the day after. “In cases, like this, the punishments for a juvenile are not released publicly, so in many cases, the public will not know what the outcome was. I know it’s frustrating, but you just have to trust that action is being taken.”

Musolff is calling for a proactive approach. He says parents should all talk to their kids about bullying and make sure that they know to leave other kids alone. He says talking with your kids could help prevent situations like this. “Talk to your kids and see if they are being bullied, they need to report that and it can be done secretly.” He says police can make it an anonymous report.

“Our goal is to have no issues, but you are going to find out similar incidents happen in other districts, but we have to get plans in place to make things as safe as possible.”

Click Here To Listen To Comments From Mike Musolff of the Shawano Police Department

Click Here To Listen To Comments From Angela Irving